A Real Object-Oriented Visual Design Language for Distributed Software Systems

State-of-the-art object-oriented analysis and design combined with techniques handling concurrency and distribution on the design level ease the development of distributed systems. A novel approach and language for the visual design of distributed software systems is introduced and illustrated by means of an example. The language of OCoNs (Object Coordination Nets) integrates the structuring mechanisms of object-oriented concepts which are crucial for handling complex software systems with the graphical expressive power of Petri-Nets for describing concurrency and coordination. The same visual language is used to specify the interfaces of software components, the resource handling within a component as well as the control flow in methods.