Computation in the Wild

Abstract

Abstract The explosive growth of the Internet has created new opportunities and risks by increasing the number of contacts between separately administered computing resources. Widespread networking and mobility have blurred many traditional computer system distinctions, including those between operating system and application, network and computer, user and administrator, and program and data. An increasing number of executable codes, including applets, agents, viruses, email attachments, and downloadable software, are escaping the confines of their original systems and spreading through communications networks. These programs coexist and coevolve with us in our world, not always to good effect. Our computers are routinely disabled by network-borne infections, our browsers crash due to unforeseen interactions between an applet and a language implementation, and applications are broken by operating system upgrades. We refer to this situation as computation in the wild, by which we mean to convey the fact that software is developed, distributed, stored, and executed in rich and dynamic environments populated by other programs and computers, which collectively form a software ecosystem. The thesis of this chapter is that networked computer systems can be better understood, controlled, and developed when viewed from the perspective of living systems.