Network objects

Abstract

A network object is an object whose methods can be invoked over a network. The Modula-3 network objects system is novel for its overall simplicity. It provides distributed type safety through the narrowest surrogate rule, which allows programmers to export new versions of distributed services as subtypes of previous versions. The design and implementation of the system is described, including a thorough description of realistic marshaling algorithms for network objects, precise informal specifications of the major system interfaces, lessons learned from using the system, and performance results.