Occam

2 definitions found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Occam
       n : English scholastic philosopher and assumed author of Occam's
           Razor (1285-1349) [syn: {William of Occam}, {Ockham}, {William
           of Ockham}]

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:



  occam
       
           (Note lower case) A language based on {Anthony
          Hoare}'s {CSP} and {EPL}.  Named after the English
          philosopher, William of Occam (1300-1349) who propounded
          {Occam's Razor}.  The occam language was designed by David May
          of {INMOS} to easily describe {concurrent} processes which
          communicate via one-way channels.  It was developed to run on
          the {INMOS} {transputer} but compilers are available for
          {VAX}, {Sun} and {Intel} {MDS}, inter alia.
       
          The basic entity in occam is the process of which there are
          four fundamental types, {assignment}, input, output, and wait.
          More complex processes are constructed from these using SEQ to
          specify sequential execution, PAR to specify parallel
          execution and ALT where each process is associated with an
          input from a channel.  The process whose channel inputs first
          is executed.  The fourth constructor is IF with a list of
          conditions and associated processes.  The process executed is
          the one with the first true condition in textual order.  There
          is no operator precedence.
       
          The original occam is now known as "occam 1".  It was extended
          to produce {occam 2}.
       
          {Simulator for VAX (ftp://watserv1.waterloo.edu/)}.
       
          Tahoe mailing list: .
       
          [David May et al, 1982.  "Concurrent algorithms"].
       
          ["Occam", D. May, SIGPLAN Notices 18(4):69-79, 1983].
       
          (1994-11-18)