%\section{Conclusions}
\LBM, an abstract machine for \LOTOS,
has been presented.
It is designed as an intermediate stage after the semantics analysis
of users' specification,
but before deriving code for some systems programming language.

All the syntactic and semantics richness of \LOTOS\ has been removed.
Therefore, \LBM\ is not intended for humans.
Deriving code for a programming language
must be an straightforward activity from \LBM\ code.
Still, a number of implementation decisions are open.
For instance, 
run--time data structures,
and mapping to O.S. processes are open options.
Very many implementations may be derived.

Currently there exist two such code derivators,
for C and Ada.
The C implementation is briefly
sketched to demonstrate some of the open opportunities.

Many models presented in the literature seem to fit
into the abstract model assumed by \LBM,
and might benefit from the intermediate stage provided by \LB\ before
actual code generation.
Symbolic interpreters might as well benefit from \LBM,
provided it is enriched with handles back into the source text to
allow for nice listings.
These extra instructions would be semantically null.

\LBM\ has been used in \TOPO\ for over three years.
During this period, it has suffered several changes.
In fact,
it is still subject to changes looking for a clear distinction of
roles between generating \LBM\ code, 
and deriving actual code from it.
Although designed to be independent of the target language,
experience in deriving code for a second language
(i.e. Ada)
helped to make it truly independent from final code.

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