  In this paper we explore the structure and applicability of the Distributed
Measurement Calculus (DMC), an assembly language for distributed
measurement-based quantum computations. We describe the formal language's
syntax and semantics, both operational and denotational, and state several
properties that are crucial to the practical usability of our language, such as
equivalence of our semantics, as well as compositionality and context-freeness
of DMC programs. We show how to put these properties to use by constructing a
composite program that implements distributed controlled operations, in the
knowledge that the semantics of this program does not change under the various
composition operations. Our formal model is the basis of a quantum virtual
machine construction for distributed quantum computations, which we elaborate
upon in the latter part of this work. This virtual machine embodies the formal
semantics of DMC such that programming execution no longer needs to be analysed
by hand. Far from a literal translation, it requires a substantial
concretisation of the formal model at the level of data structures, naming
conventions and abstraction mechanisms. At the same time we provide
automatisation techniques for program specification where possible to obtain an
expressive and user-friendly programming environment.
