Tuple space

A tuple space is an implementation of the associative memory paradigm for parallel/distributed computing. It provides a repository of tuples that can be accessed concurrently. As an illustrative example, consider that there are a group of processors that produce pieces of data and a group of processors that use the data. Producers post their data as tuples in the space, and the consumers then retrieve data from the space that match a certain pattern. This is also known as the blackboard metaphor. Tuple space may be thought as a form of distributed shared memory.

Tuple spaces were the theoretical underpinning of the Linda language developed by David Gelernter and Nicholas Carriero at Yale University.

Implementations of tuple spaces have also been developed for Java (JavaSpaces), Lisp, Lua, Prolog, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, Tcl, and the .NET framework.

Object Spaces is a paradigm for development of distributed computing applications. It is characterized by the existence of logical entities, called Object Spaces. All the participants of the distributed application share an Object Space. A provider of a service encapsulates the service as an Object, and puts it in the Object Space. Clients of a service then access the Object Space, find out which object provides the needed service, and have the request serviced by the object.

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