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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 | 15762 reads

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Abstract

The abstract of the paper is:

ActorScriptâ„¢ 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

Is there some good _introduction_ to the subject?

I found this paper quite challenging to read - it is more of a reference/cheat-sheet for the language than an introduction, various symbols are used before being defined, and so on. Is there any introduction to the language?

By Blaisorblade at Wed, 2010-10-13 13:30 | login or register to post comments

various symbols are used

various symbols are used before being defined...

... and their sizes are dancing as if they've passed through a drunken document converter. That's how possibly valuable ideas get lost - fortunately everything is quickly re-invented these days ;)

By Kay Schluehr at Wed, 2010-10-13 14:51 | login or register to post comments

ActorScript tutorial

See tutorial here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1008.2748v20

By Hewitt at Sat, 2011-11-26 19:06 | login or register to post comments

Are any implementations of actorscript available

to the public?

By Josh Scholar at Sat, 2015-04-25 22:52 | login or register to post comments

Implementations of ActorScript

So far there are no implementations of ActorScript available to the public.

Also, the online documentation is obsolete because arXiv administrators have not allowed it put be updated with the published version from the book.

By Hewitt at Sat, 2015-04-25 23:17 | login or register to post comments

I'll have to wait

for someone to answer your call to post a new version to see the updated definition.

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5129
(If I skimmed that and understood properly).

I can't afford CS books, I'm afraid since my income is from a basically failing business >.>

I couldn't find the book available with an internet search.

Neither googling:
"Inconsistency Robustness" book
nor
"Inconsistency Robustness" "college publications"
turns up anything.

By Josh Scholar at Sat, 2015-04-25 23:30 | login or register to post comments

ArXiv nixed updating online article with published version

ArXiv has so far prohibited updating the online article with the published version.

Otherwise, the online article would have been updated already.

By Hewitt at Sat, 2015-04-25 23:47 | login or register to post comments