Actor Model Formal Semantics in Scala

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?-calculus

On 07/12/10 21:01, Fatih Turkmen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am looking for a formal presentation of the actor model
> implemented in Scala. I checked the Scala Web site and found the
> paper: /Scala Actors: Unifying Thread-based and Event-based
> Programming/. What I need is a more formal, and more like the
> denotational semantics of the actor model (e.g. in [1]).  Do you
> know any papers, documents or references that explain the
> denotational semantics of the model used in Scala?
>
> 1. Foundations of Actor Semantics, Clinger, William Douglas
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> -- Fatih Turkmen

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Tony Morris <tonymorris@gmail.com> wrote:

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?-calculus

qmark calculus? Is that when you ask the teacher?
 

On 07/12/10 21:01, Fatih Turkmen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am looking for a formal presentation of the actor model
> implemented in Scala. I checked the Scala Web site and found the
> paper: /Scala Actors: Unifying Thread-based and Event-based
> Programming/. What I need is a more formal, and more like the
> denotational semantics of the actor model (e.g. in [1]).  Do you
> know any papers, documents or references that explain the
> denotational semantics of the model used in Scala?
>
> 1. Foundations of Actor Semantics, Clinger, William Douglas
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> -- Fatih Turkmen

Dear Faith,
i'm curious why denotational? Operational is a lot easier in this particular case. Some folks did a π-calculus semantics for a kernel of erlang actors. Scala "actors" will present more challenges. It's hard to get anyone to pony up some basic properties of message arrival distribution for Scala "actors" and that's made even more difficult by the plugin scheduler architecture. Without these basic statements of policy there's very little connection, semantically, between Scala "actors" and the sort of thing Clinger (and Hewitt and Agha) were talking about.
Best wishes,
--greg

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 3:01 AM, Fatih Turkmen <fturkmen@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I am looking for a formal presentation of the actor model implemented in Scala. I checked the Scala Web site and found the paper: Scala Actors: Unifying Thread-based and Event-based Programming. What I need is a more formal, and more like the denotational semantics of the actor model (e.g. in [1]).  Do you know any papers, documents or references that explain the denotational semantics of the model used in Scala?

1. Foundations of Actor Semantics, Clinger, William Douglas

Thanks in advance.

--
Fatih Turkmen

--
L.G. Meredith
Managing Partner
Biosimilarity LLC
7329 39th Ave SWSeattle, WA 98136

+1 206.650.3740

http://biosimilarity.blogspot.com

Dear Greg and others,

Thank you all for the responses. I just need a lightweight syntax that will help me express the program I have written and also probably verify it.
In my case, although one of the important aspects is the guaranteed delivery of messages while Clinger's (and others) notations are well defined. That is the main reason I asked for Scala actor model. I am not aware of all details of Erlang actors and their comparison to Scala's. I guess it would be better to start with pi-calculus but the reason was mainly the paper of Hewitt in 2006 introducing a new denotational semantics with Timed diagrams. The concept seemed more inline with what I had in mind.

Thanks.

--
Fatih Turkmen

2010/12/7 Meredith Gregory <lgreg.meredith@gmail.com>

Dear Faith,
i'm curious why denotational? Operational is a lot easier in this particular case. Some folks did a π-calculus semantics for a kernel of erlang actors. Scala "actors" will present more challenges. It's hard to get anyone to pony up some basic properties of message arrival distribution for Scala "actors" and that's made even more difficult by the plugin scheduler architecture. Without these basic statements of policy there's very little connection, semantically, between Scala "actors" and the sort of thing Clinger (and Hewitt and Agha) were talking about.
Best wishes,
--greg

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 3:01 AM, Fatih Turkmen <fturkmen@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I am looking for a formal presentation of the actor model implemented in Scala. I checked the Scala Web site and found the paper: Scala Actors: Unifying Thread-based and Event-based Programming. What I need is a more formal, and more like the denotational semantics of the actor model (e.g. in [1]).  Do you know any papers, documents or references that explain the denotational semantics of the model used in Scala?

1. Foundations of Actor Semantics, Clinger, William Douglas

Thanks in advance.

--
Fatih Turkmen

--
L.G. Meredith
Managing Partner
Biosimilarity LLC
7329 39th Ave SWSeattle, WA 98136

+1 206.650.3740

http://biosimilarity.blogspot.com