Circuits and methods for mobility of effectful program fragments

A method of determining whether a variable name within a set of software code being executed on a computer is associated with a path comprising:

• testing if the variable name is defined within the code but outside a code module referencing the variable name;
• if the variable name is defined outside the code module referencing the variable name, determining that the variable name is an external variable name associated with a path;
• and
• if the variable name is defined within the code module:
• testing if the variable name can be referenced by code outside of the code module defining the variable name;
• if the variable name can be referenced by code outside of the code module defining the variable name, determining that the variable name is a public variable name associated with a path;
• and
• if the variable name cannot be referenced by code outside of the code module defining the variable name, determining that the variable name is a not public variable name and is not associated with a path.

A method of serializing an expression defined in programming code running on a computer into binary data, comprising:

• testing the expression with the computer;
• and
• selectively performing serialization operations with the computer in response to testing the expression:
• if the expression is a path, encoding the path;
• if the expression is a variable, serializing the variable;
• if the expression if a program fragment, serializing the program fragment;
• and
• if the expression has free variables, localizing the free variables.

A method of de-serializing binary data with a computer to generate an expression in a corresponding programming code, comprising:

• testing the expression with the computer;
• and
• selectively performing de-serialization operations with the computer in response to testing the expression, comprising:
• if the binary data can be decoded as a path, decoding the binary data as a path;
• if the binary data cannot be decoded as a path but can be decoded as a variable, decoding the binary data as a variable;
• and
• if the binary data cannot be decoded as a path or a variable and can be decoded as a program fragment, decoding the binary data as a program fragment.

A method of installing software on a computer comprising:

• receiving binary data with the computer from an external source;
• de-serializing the binary data;
• performing a dispatch to retrieve code for operating on the de-serialized data;
• and
• installing the retrieved code on the computer and operating on the de-serialized data.

A method of exchanging program code via a network using zero-configuration software comprising:

• designating with a plurality of machines participating in zero-configuration a single overloaded function name as an entry point into programming code, the overloaded function name corresponding to a entry point function which takes a parameter;
• on a first computer, defining a non-public datatype;
• on the first computer, overloading the designated entry point function with a program fragment for the non-public datatype;
• on the first computer, serializing the program fragment defined by applying the entry point function to the non-public datatype;
• sending the serialized program fragment from the first computer to a second computer via the network;
• receiving the serialized program fragment with the second computer;
• on the second computer, deserializing the serialized program fragment and selectively running the program fragment with network-aware open dynamic dispatch.