them to implement application independent activities, ie. general tasks that are not part of any particular application. Workers cannot be defined through SETs; they can only be created programmatically within the framework of the MOJO MASCOT machine. Once defined, a worker activity may be incarnated in any subsystem context; the MOJO machine ensures that this process does not pollute the containing subsystem’s definition. In other words, worker activities are local to a particular subsystem incarnation and do not modify the definition used to create the incarnation. It is thus the case that a new incarnation of the same subsystem will not contain any workers and so the integrity of the SET definition is maintained.

The MOJO device implementation uses workers to orchestrate and control the device instancing process. The telnet server handler also uses workers to service and maintain individual sessions and is a good example of how to write a handler; the source code for this handler is included in the MOJO package.

Workers adds another dimension to the MOJO MASCOT 2002 Machine implementation and considerable flexibility to the MOJO MASCOT machine. Developers have the ability to install new functionality into the underlying machine in a way that is similar to adding new drivers to an operating system. The MOJO machine itself enforces a strict separation between the workers and the system repository and assures the integrity of entity definitions.