Phantom is an interpreted object-oriented language which provides for transparent distribution of both code and data. Phantom is designed for writing dynamically extensible, interactive, distributed applications such as collaborative work tools, multi-player games, and distributed conferencing systems. Not distributed, but these people know what they are doing. Appears to be a clean well designed language. Before designing a distributed computational system we need to explore different distributed computation models.
Many models exist.
Pi-calculus, CCS, CSP, and process algebra. Message passing models have the advantages of being readily mappable onto large scale systems and also correspond closely to how we think about such systems. The Pi-calculus currently appears the best theoretical model of distributed computation. It is simpler and more powerful than other process calculi. CCS is more complex.