Conclusion

This paper has presented the design of the meta-level architecture of ABCL/R3. Assuming the compilation technique using partial evaluation, our architecture allows flexible extensibility for the syntax and semantics of the base-level languages in an inexpensive manner. In addition, customization of meta-interpreters can be easily re-used by using standard object-oriented techniques such as delegation in the same way to sequential reflective object-oriented languages (e.g., CLOS) allow. Reflective annotations allow programmers to write directives to the meta-level programs as comments to a base-level program. The interpretation of annotations can also be customized by modifying the meta-interpreters. This paper also describes how several common parallel programming strategies, including object replication, latency hiding, termination detection, and user-level scheduling, are straightforwardly realized as language constructs by using our architecture. These strategies can be incorporated into existing base-level programs without modifying their structures.