Broadcasting with Priority

Paper in proceeding, 1994

Adding priorities to CCS is difficult, and involves two-stage operational semantics or other complications. By contrast, priorities can be added very simply to a calculus of broadcasting systems (CBS). The reason is the input /output distinction made in CBS, with output actions being autonomous. Priority makes sense only for autonomous actions. As in unprioritised CBS, both strong and weak bisimulation are congruences, and capture the intuitively desired equivalences. CBS is also a powerful and natural language, offering an interesting new programming paradigm. Several examples show that priorities extend both the power and the paradigm.