In a time of multiprocessor machines, message switching networks and
process control programming tasks, the foundations of programming
distributed systems are among the central challenges for computing sci
enti sts. The foundati ons of di stributed programming compri se all the
fasci nating questions of computing science: the development of adequate
com putational, conceptual and semantic model s for distributed systems,
specification methods, verification techniques, transformation rules,
the development of suitable representations by programming languages,
evaluation and execution of programs describing distributed systems.
Being the 7th in a series of ASI Summer Schools at Marktoberdorf, these
lectures concentrated on distributed systems. Already during the
previous Summer School s at Marktoberdorf aspects of di stributed
systems were important periodical topics. The rising interest in
distributed systems, their design and implementation led to a
considerable amount of research in this area. This is impressively
demonstrated by the broad spectrum of the topics of the papers in this
vol ume, although they are far from being comprehensive for the work
done in the area of distributed systems. Distributed systems are
extraordinarily complex and allow many distinct viewpoints. Therefore
the literature on distributed systems sometimes may look rather
confusing to people not working in the field. Nevertheless there is no
reason for resignation: the Summer School was able to show considerable
convergence in ideas, approaches and concepts for distributed systems.
