Towards A Systems Approach To Distributed Programming

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a systems-oriented approach to distributed programming, emphasizing the use of higher-level languages with clear semantics to better integrate and manage underlying systems infrastructure.

Contribution

It introduces a research direction focusing on higher-level languages with defined semantics to improve the development and integration of distributed systems.

Findings

Most developers build distributed applications by combining existing systems.

Current systems rely on unspecified APIs, complicating development.

Proposes a middle-ground approach using higher-level languages with well-defined semantics.

Abstract

It is undeniable that most developers today are building distributed applications. However, most of these applications are developed by composing existing systems together through unspecified APIs exposed to the application developer. Systems are not going away: they solve a particular problem and most applications today need to rely on several of these systems working in concert. Given this, we propose a research direction where higher-level languages with well defined semantics target underlying systems infrastructure as a middle-ground.