Coloured Petri nets and the language for distributed programming UPL: their comparison and translation

Petri nets are widely used as a means of modeling distributed multi-agent systems. There are tools for working with extended Petri nets, in which tokens are loaded with arbitrary data. For example, CPN Tools allows you to describe, play and explore Colored Petri Nets (CPN). The question is raised about the possibility of using this tool for the development, prototyping and research of parallel distributed computing algorithms, ideally turning them into working efficient parallel programs. We have experience in experimental programming of various algorithms in the graphical data flow language UPL, which currently exists “on paper”. Its comparison with CPN shows that their semantics have a lot in common. In the article, both languages are defined, compared with examples and through the rules of translation from one to another. The means for defining distribution of computations (distribution functions) are also described. An interesting question is about their transfer to CPN, where they have no analogues yet.