A language to comprehend and manage distributed worlds.

Abstract

The paper presents and discusses the details of the Spatial Grasp Language (SGL), including its philosophy, methodology, syntax, semantics, and implementation in distributed systems. As a key element of the developed Spatial Grasp Model and Technology, SGL has been used in numerous applications and publications, including seven books. This inspired us to devote the current paper exclusively to the main features of this language and comparison with other languages as a tribute to its impact on the Distributed Management Project at the National Academy of Sciences, with strong international participation and support. The comparison with other programming languages shows high level, simplicity, and compactness of the obtained solutions, which are explained by the fact that SGL operates directly on distributed networked bodies in a holistic, parallel, self-navigation and pattern matching mode. This effectively puts upside down the established practice and opinion that parallel and distributed computing is essentially more complex than sequential programming. In comparison with specialized battle management languages oriented on command and control of military campaigns, the SGL programming example shows high clarity and efficiency for expressing campaigns with spatial movement and maintenance of the needed resources, also confirming its universal ability for extended applications in similar areas. The relation of SGL to natural languages is shown where globally recursive SGL organization can be directly used for describing and analyzing natural language structures of any volume and complexity, just by adding new rules to the SGL definition. SGL can also effectively substitute natural languages for a high-level and quick definition of complex spatial problems and their solutions due to its power, compactness, and formula-like recursive nature.