Abstract

Abstract: Any application involving autonomous components, or agents, is conceptually decentralized. Decentralization motivates coordination between agents via asynchronous messaging and a protocol that specifies the constraints on messaging.

I will introduce the Blindingly Simple Protocol Language, or BSPL , a declarative information-based protocol language of considerable novelty. Unlike other protocol languages, BSPL explicitly specifies information causality and integrity. I will compare BSPL with select modern languages that broadly fall under the umbrella of session types on the basis of vital representational and operational criteria, among them ordering assumptions and concurrency, and broad architectural principles.

BSPL embraces autonomy, concurrency, and asynchrony—naturally—and in that it gives us an opportunity to reimagine distributed computing.

Bio: Amit Chopra is a senior lecturer at Lancaster University. He is interested in the engineering of decentralized sociotechnical systems, with a focus on protocols, norms, and social meanings.