zlacker

>>kioku+(OP)
Please change the title to the original, "Actors: A Model Of Concurrent Computation In Distributed Systems".

I'm not normally a stickler for HN's rule about title preservation, but in this case the "in distributed systems" part is crucial, because IMO the urge to use both the actor model (and its relative, CSP) in non-distributed systems solely in order to achieve concurrency has been a massive boondoggle and a huge dead end. Which is to say, if you're within a single process, what you want is structured concurrency ( https://vorpus.org/blog/notes-on-structured-concurrency-or-g... ), not the unstructured concurrency that is inherent to a distributed system.

>>kibwen+4d
I'm working on an rest API server backed by a git repo. Having an actor responsible for all git operations saved me from a lot of trouble as having all git operations serialised freed me from having to prevent concurrent git operations.

Using actors also simplified greatly other parts of the app.

>>raphin+nw
So you're just using actors to limit concurrency? Why not use a mutex?

>>koakum+6x
This might be a question of personal preference. At the design stage I already find it more approachable to think in separated responsibilities, and it naturally translates to actors. Thinking about the app, it's much reasier for me to thin "send the message to the actor" than call that function that uses the necessary mutex. With mutexes, I think the separation of concerns is not as strong, and you might end up with a function taking multiples mutexes that might interfere. With the actor model, I feel there is less risk (though I'm sure this would be questioned by seasoned mutex users).