资料来源 : WordNet®

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

资料来源 : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

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)