The focus of this portion of our web guide is on the P programming language.
Developed collaboratively by Microsoft and the University of California at Berkeley, P is open-source, licensed under the MIT License, and available on GitHub. Key developers included Ankush Desai, Vivek Gupta, Ethan Jackson, Shaz Qadeer, and Sriram Rajamani.
First appearing in 2012, P was designed for asynchronous event-driven programming and the Internet of Things (IoT). The language enables programmers to specify systems consisting of a collection of state machines that communicate asynchronously in terms of events. P programs are able to run and be analyzed on any platform supported by .NET.
P was conceived with a clear set of design goals in mind, including asynchronous event-driven programming, fault-tolerance and uncertainty, and state machines and asynchrony.
P aims to meet the challenges posed by asynchronous computation. It provides a robust framework for modeling and specifying protocols in event-driven applications. Acknowledging the inherent unpredictability of distributed systems, P equips developers with tools to handle uncertainty gracefully, ensuring robustness even in the face of unexpected events. At its core, P revolves around state machines, which communicate asynchronously through events, forming the building blocks of complex systems.
P leverages the .NET ecosystem, allowing P programs to run and be analyzed on any platform supported by .NET. Additionally, P can generate C# and C code, enhancing its interoperability.
P encourages developers to think in terms of state machines. These machines encapsulate behavior, transitions, and event handling. By modeling systems as interconnected state machines, P simplifies complex interactions.
P's asynchronous nature revolves around events. Developers define events, transitions, and guards, allowing for precise control over system behavior.
P emphasizes safety. It provides tools for systematic testing of asynchronous reactive systems, ensuring robustness and minimizing Heisenbugs, which are elusive, timing-dependent bugs.
P's .NET integration ensures that P programs can run on various platforms, making it versatile for IoT and other distributed applications.
The P community actively maintains and enhances the language through GitHub. Researchers and practitioners contribute to its evolution, refining its features and addressing real-world challenges.
Both Go (Golang) and P emphasize concurrency, but P's focus on asynchronous event-driven programming sets it apart. P's state machines provide a higher level of abstraction for complex systems.
Like Erlang, P targets fault-tolerant, distributed systems. However, P's formal verification tools and .NET compatibility give it an edge in safety and practicality.
P finds its niche in the following domains: IoT, distributed systems, and protocols and communication.
P's event-driven approach suits the IoT landscape, where devices communicate asynchronously. It enables robust, fault-tolerant IoT systems. P's safety features make it appealing for building reliable distributed systems, and P excels at modeling and specifying communication protocols, ensuring smooth interactions between components.
P embraces asynchrony, safety, and the challenges of distributed systems. Its state machine-based paradigm and focus on events make it a powerful tool for building resilient software in an increasingly connected world.
Recommended Resources
The P programming language is available through the MIT License at its official GitHub repository, including the source code, compilers, documentation, and licensure information. Contributors to the P Programming Language Project are identified through their GitHub profiles, and its branches, tags, issues, and pull requests may be viewed, along with the code of conduct for contributors. An overview of the language is published on the page, with links to detailed documentation and tutorials.
https://github.com/p-org/P
Hosted on GitHub, the official website for the P programming language, it describes the challenge for which the language was designed to solve, along with an overview of the language and its impact on real-world applications. Other resources include an introduction to the language, tips on getting started with the language, tutorials, case studies, an advanced user guide, a language manual, research publications, videos, publications, and information about contributing to its development.
https://p-org.github.io/P/
Hosted on GeeksforGeeks, a computer science portal that caters to the needs of programming enthusiasts and learners, its section on the P programming language focuses on this language, designed for modeling and specifying protocols in asynchronous event-driven applications. An overview of the language and its general programming concepts are provided, as well as asynchronous computation and its applications in event-driven scenarios and broader instruction.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/p-programming-language/
P: Safe Asynchronous Event-Driven Programming
Written by Vivek Gupta, Ethan Jackson, Shaz Qadeer, and Sriram Rajamani, the chief designers and developers of the P programming language, and published on the Microsoft website in November 2012, the article or announcement focuses on the design and implementation of the domain-specific language called P, which was specifically designed for writing asynchronous event-driven code. In P, programmers can specify a system as a collection of interacting state machines that communicate using events.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/p-safe-asynchronous-event-driven-programming/
