Editing Theoretical computer science (section)

===Distributed computation===
{{main|Distributed computation}}
[[Distributed computing]] studies distributed systems. A distributed system is a software system in which components located on [[computer network|networked computers]] communicate and coordinate their actions by [[message passing|passing messages]].<ref name="Coulouris">{{cite book|last=Coulouris|first=George|author2=Jean Dollimore|author-link2=Jean Dollimore|author3=Tim Kindberg|author4=Gordon Blair|title=Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design|publisher = Addison-Wesley|year=2011|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-132-14301-1|edition=5th}}</ref> The components interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal. Three significant characteristics of distributed systems are: concurrency of components, lack of a global clock, and independent failure of components.<ref name="Coulouris"/> Examples of distributed systems vary from [[Service-oriented architecture|SOA-based systems]] to [[massively multiplayer online game]]s to [[Peer-to-peer| peer-to-peer applications]], and blockchain networks like [[Bitcoin]].

A [[computer program]] that runs in a distributed system is called a '''distributed program''', and distributed programming is the process of writing such programs.<ref>{{cite book
| last=Ghosh | first=Sukumar
| title=Distributed Systems – An Algorithmic Approach
| page = 10
| publisher=Chapman & Hall/CRC
| year=2007
| isbn=978-1-58488-564-1
}}</ref> There are many alternatives for the message passing mechanism, including [[Remote procedure call|RPC-like]] connectors and [[Message-oriented middleware|message queues]].  An important goal and challenge of distributed systems is [[location transparency]].