Editing Process calculus (section)

== Essential features ==

While the variety of existing process calculi is very large (including variants that incorporate [[stochastic]] behaviour, timing information, and specializations for studying molecular interactions), there are several features that all process calculi have in common:<ref>{{cite book | author-link = Benjamin C. Pierce | first = Benjamin | last = Pierce | chapter = Foundational Calculi for Programming Languages | title = The Computer Science and Engineering Handbook | pages = 2190–2207 | publisher = CRC Press | isbn = 0-8493-2909-4 | date = 1996-12-21 }}</ref>

* Representing interactions between independent processes as communication ([[message-passing]]), rather than as modification of shared variables.
* Describing processes and systems using a small collection of primitives, and operators for combining those primitives.
* Defining algebraic laws for the process operators, which allow process expressions to be manipulated using [[equational reasoning]].