Focussing proof-net construction as a middleware paradigm

Abstract

This paper introduces a new formulation of the computational paradigm based on proof-construction in terms of proof-nets. It shows the relevance of this paradigm, thus formulated, to capture some of the fundamental mechanisms of distributed computation (and in particular, transaction mechanisms), which are familiar concepts of middleware infrastructures. It therefore constitutes a first step in the direction of the definition of a steady conceptual framework in which to formalise and study various middleware notions, which, until now, have essentially been studied through ad-hoc and diverse formalisms. Due to space constraints, the proofs of the technical results of this paper have been skipped. They were reviewed with the initially submitted version of the paper and are available from the author.