A visual programming environment for distributed systems

Due to the lack of a uniform specification framework for different software packages on heterogeneous processors, it is difficult for a user to program distributed systems using the existing resources. This paper presents a visual programming environment called PEDS (Programming Environment for Distributed Systems) for programming parallel and distributed systems. As a visual language, PEDS is a high-level specification tool for specifying distributed applications. PEDS´s visual elements are specially designed to utilize various software packages-the programming platforms of software packages can be embedded into the visual elements. Taking the advantage of 2D visual forms and features of direct manipulation, PEDS supports hierarchical design through multiple levels of abstraction