The problem of designing systems for concurrent programming is an important area of research in computer science. In sequential computers, software engineering considerations, such as the need for abstraction and program modularity, have led to a recent increase in the popularity of object-based programming. Because parallelism is a natural consequence of distributed objects, the development of systems for concurrent object-based programming (OBCP) is likely to prove fruitful in providing good software support for a new generation of concurrent computers. Research in OBCP has progressed in different areas of computer science rather independently. A number of new programming languages, systems, architectures and applications have been developed in the last few years. Two foundational models of concurrency, namely the actor model and Flat Guarded Horn Clauses, can be used to provide a hardware platform for object-based concurrent programming. A number of on-going projects are developing object-based systems to support concurrent applications in areas such as distributed database, distributed simulation, and office information systems. Finally, work on topics such s transactions, type theory, computational reflection and program transformation has important ramifications for OBCP. The workshop will provide the first opportunity to assess the state of the art in research and development of OBCP. It will also permit an exchange of ideas on the development of common goals and the integration of the area as a unified field of research. Finally, the publication of papers presented at the workshop will make the work easily available to researchers.
