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ActorScript(TM): Industrial strength integration of local and nonlocal concurrency for Client-cloud Computing

ActorScript(TM): Industrial strength integration of local and nonlocal concurrency for Client-cloud Computing by Carl Hewitt, 2009.
ActorScript is based on a mathematical model of computation that treats “Actors” as the universal primitives of concurrent digital computation [Hewitt, Bishop, and Steiger 1973; Hewitt 1977]. Actors been used both as a framework for a theoretical understanding of concurrency, and as the theoretical basis for several practical implementations of concurrent systems.
I hope I do not need to introduce Carl Hewitt or his Actor model. This paper is a modern attempt to expose that model via a practical PL.
By Andris Birkmanis at 2009-12-14 13:47 | Logic/Declarative | Object-Functional | other blogs | 3233 reads

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Abstract

The abstract of the paper is:

ActorScript™ is a general purpose programming language for implementing massive local and nonlocal concurrency. It is differentiated from other concurrent languages by the following:
• Identifiers (names) in the language are referentially transparent, i.e., in a given scope an identifier always refers to the same thing.
• Everything in the language is accomplished using message passing including the very definition of ActorScript itself.
• Binary XML and JSON are fundamental, being used for structuring both data and messages.
• Functional and Logic Programming are integrated into general concurrent programming.
• Advanced features such as eventing, co-routines, futures, serializers, sponsors, etc. can be defined and implemented without having to resort to low level implementation mechanisms such as threads, tasks, channels, queues, locks, cores, etc.
• For ease of reading, programming can be displayed using a 2-dimensional textual typography (as is often done in mathematics).
• ActorScript attempts to achieve the highest level of performance, scalability, and expressiblity with a minimum of primitives.

By Carl Hewitt at Sun, 2009-12-20 16:47 | login or register to post comments