Event delivery abstractions for mobile computing

An application intended for a mobile computing environment is different from more traditional ones in that it is moreevent driven. The reason is that mobile computing is associated with constraints, both in terms of mobile host hardware and the network environment. The effect of these constraints is complicated by the fact that the environment in which a mobile host operates changes as it moves. An application in such an environment will have to metamorphose as changes occur, in order to make the best possible use of the constrained environment and thus provide the best possible quality of service to a user. We choose to model these changes in the environment as events which are delivered to each application that is interested. This paper describes a language level abstraction to deliver events along with the run-time support required. The idea itself is not restricted to the mobile computing environment: it could be used in all such environments where an application may be interested in altering its behavior in response to changes in the state of its environment.