[erlang-questions] local vs. distributed differences?

[Ulf Wiger]

Raoul Duke wrote:
> hi,
> 
> reading the McErlang stuff, i learned that message delivery order is
> only guaranteed when things aren't distributed. (looking around on the
> net, it i've heard that it is further only when you have multiple
> messages going from the same sender to the same receiver.)
> 
> so it sounds like taking a multi-actor local system and then trying to
> scale out by moving to a bigger distributed system could turn up some
> interesting "bugs". what are people's experience with this?
> 
> (and, as an aside, could the Erlang system be hacked to enforce
> ordering even in a distributed setup? would that ever be useful, or
> just silly?)
> 
> thank you.

I think you can assume that Erlang /does/ guarantee ordering
in distributed systems. The case when it doesn't can be
eliminated using the same techniques as when guarding against
partitioned network scenarios.

As long as the link stays up between two nodes, the ordering
is guaranteed.

BR,
Ulf W
-- 
Ulf Wiger
CTO, Erlang Training & Consulting Ltd
http://www.erlang-consulting.com