1. At a computer system including at least one processor and a memory, in a computer networking environment including a plurality of computing systems, a computer-implemented method for using object serialization to communicate references to shim objects, the method comprising: an act of instantiating shim objects on one or more ranks of a distributed application, the shim objects being configured to store a reference to an instance of a native partitioned array, the reference including a unique identifier for the native partitioned array instance; an act of serializing the shim objects for communication of the stored references from the master rank of the distributed application to one or more worker ranks of the distributed application; and upon serializing the shim objects, an act of communicating the shim object's stored references to the one or more worker ranks of the distributed application.