Abstract

The purpose of the research reported here was to explore an alternative way of organizing the general software structure in computers, eliminating the traditional distinctions between operating system, programming language, database system, and several other kinds of software. We observed that there is a lot of costly duplication of concepts and of facilities in the conventional architecture, and believe that most of that duplication can be eliminated if the software is organized differently. This article describes Leordo, an experimental software system that has been built in order to explore an alternative design and to try to verify the hypothesis that a much more compact design is possible and that concept duplication can be eliminated or at least greatly reduced. Definite conclusions in those respects can not yet be made, but the indications are positive and the design that has been

Introduction

Project goal and design goals

Leordo is a software project and an experimental software system that integrates capabilities that are usually found in several different software systems:

• in the operating system

• in the programming language and programming environment

• in an intelligent agent system

• in a text formatting system

and others more. I believe that it should be possible to make a much more concise, efficient, and user-friendly design of the total software system in the conventional (PC-type) computer by integrating capabilities and organizing them in a new way.