Actor model: Difference between revisions

Its development was "motivated by the prospect of highly [[parallel computing]] machines consisting of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of independent [[Microprocessor|microprocessors]], each with its own local memory and [[Front-end processor|communications processor]], communicating via a high-performance [[Telecommunications network|communications network]]."<ref name="clinger1981">{{cite journal|author=William Clinger|author-link=William Clinger (computer scientist)|title=Foundations of Actor Semantics|publisher=MIT|version=Mathematics Doctoral Dissertation|date=June 1981|hdl=1721.1/6935}}</ref> Since that time, the advent of massive concurrency through [[Multi-core (computing)|multi-core]] and [[manycore]] [[Computer architecture|computer architectures]] has revived interest in the actor model.

Following Hewitt, Bishop, and Steiger's 1973 publication, [[Irene Greif]] developed an [[operational semantics]] for the actor model as part of her [[Doctorate|doctoral]] research.<ref name="greif1975">{{cite journal|author=Irene Greif|author-link=Irene Greif|title=Semantics of Communicating Parallel Processes|publisher=MIT|version=EECS Doctoral Dissertation|date=August 1975}}</ref> Two years later, [[Henry Baker (computer scientist)|Henry Baker]] and Hewitt published a set of axiomatic laws for actor systems.<ref name="baker1977">{{cite journal|author=Henry Baker|author-link=Henry Baker (computer scientist)|author2=Carl Hewitt|title=Laws for Communicating Parallel Processes|publisher=IFIP|date=August 1977|author-link2=Carl Hewitt}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/41962/AI_WP_134A.pdf|title=Laws for Communicating Parallel Processes|date=10 May 1977|access-date=11 June 2014|archive-date=24 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624000258/http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/41962/AI_WP_134A.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Other major milestones include [[William Clinger (computer scientist)|William Clinger's]] 1981 dissertation introducing a [[Denotational semantics of the Actor model|denotational semantics]] based on [[power domains]]<ref name="clinger1981" /> and [[Gul Agha (computer scientist)|Gul Agha]]'s 1985 dissertation which further developed a transition-based semantic model complementary to Clinger's.<ref name="agha1986">{{cite journal|author=Gul Agha|title=Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems|version= Doctoral Dissertation|publisher=MIT Press|year=1986|hdl=1721.1/6952}}</ref> This resulted in the full development of [[actor model theory]].