[erlang-questions] Erlang is *not* a implementation of the Actor model Re: Go vs Erlang for distribution

[Robert Virding]

And of course OSes which embody a lot of the ideas we were after, but in
such a way that they were/are way to heavy for what we were after. In many
ways an Erlang system does have an OS feeling about it. At least I think so.

Robert

On 23 June 2014 02:27, Robert Virding <rvirding@REDACTED> wrote:

> We had never heard of the actor model, at least I hadn't. We had other
> inputs, amongst others Eripascal which an internal Ericsson version of
> Pascal which had processes and messages.
>
> Hewitt got a lot of things wrong in his description of Erlang.
>
> Robert
>
>
>
> On 22 June 2014 23:58, Peer Stritzinger <peerst@REDACTED> wrote:
>
>> On 2014-06-22 02:07:12 +0000, Miles Fidelman said:
>>
>>> I see Erlang as an implementation of the Actor model, a la Carl Hewitt -
>>>
>>
>> This crops up again and again but still isn't true.
>>
>> Erlang does *not* implement Actors but processes with links/monitors
>> mailboxes and messages, which are not equivalent to actors.
>>
>> Processes: sequence of function calls interspresed with (selective)
>> receives that pick out someting out of the mailbox.
>>
>> Actor: has to handle every message immediately, the actions a message
>> triggers are happening concurrently, nothing longer running or sequential
>> allowed.
>>
>> Hewitt says himself that Erlang does not implement Actors:
>> http://arxiv.org/pdf/1008.1459.pdf
>>
>> He picks on different things like "silent process failure" instead of
>> exceptions (which don't make much sense for somone familiar with Erlang)
>> and that Actors seem to be garbage collected if they are "unneded" probably
>> no longer referenced from the outside and Erlang needs "internal
>> termination".
>>
>> Hewitt writes mostly what he finds lacking but on the other hand I find
>> the process with mailbox, selective receive and links/monitors (not ver
>> silent ;-) more powerful that simple Actors.
>>
>> Also as aside from what I've heard Erlangs creators didn't look at Actors
>> when creating.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -- Peer
>>
>>
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>
>
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