[HN Gopher] CAF: C++ Actor Framework
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CAF: C++ Actor Framework
Author : anarchyrucks
Score : 71 points
Date : 2020-03-01 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| clarry wrote:
| > Decoupling concurrently running software components via message
| passing avoids race conditions by design.
|
| How am I supposed to read this? It's obviously not "message
| passing eliminates race conditions", so perhaps it's intended to
| say something like "you need to design the components to avoid
| race conditions."
| dnautics wrote:
| I don't think it's true. Message passing definitely doesn't
| eliminate race conditions or deadlocks. Although, it's much
| easier to design code that has fewer race conditions.
|
| It's possible that they mean "it avoids data races by design".
| jfkebwjsbx wrote:
| Exactly! Data races are just a subset of issues!
| senderista wrote:
| Message passing without selective receive does eliminate
| deadlocks. See: Pony.
| Mofu-chan wrote:
| I was bored so I added CAF to pkgsrc, which you can use to
| install CAF on NetBSD/Linux/macOS and a variety of other Unix-ey
| platforms that pkgsrc supports:
|
| https://github.com/NetBSD/pkgsrc-wip/tree/master/actor-frame...
| git clone https://github.com/NetBSD/pkgsrc --depth 1 ~/pkgsrc
| git clone https://github.com/NetBSD/pkgsrc-wip --depth 1
| ~/pkgsrc/wip cd ~/pkgsrc/bootstrap
| ./bootstrap --unprivileged cd ~/pkgsrc/wip/actor-model
| ~/pkg/bin/bmake install ~/pkg/sbin/pkg_info -L actor-
| model
|
| That is all.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Honestly, the source code of the examples looks rather
| complicated, like something that should better be generated from
| a nicer high-level language that has a native actor concept.
| (Obviously, the power of C++ templates does not come for free -
| you pay with noisy code and increased cognitive load.)
| ekez wrote:
| Zeek uses CAF internally for data exchange over networks and
| workers [1]. It's not quite a "native actor concept", but it is
| a nice way to interact with the framework. I've used it before
| and its worked quite smoothly.
|
| [1] https://docs.zeek.org/en/current/frameworks/broker.html
| jfkebwjsbx wrote:
| And compilation times and memory requirements for it.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| In the Docs:Overview [0], the compile and build instructions are
| not showing up for some reason.
|
| [0] https://actor-
| framework.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Overview.ht...
| thedance wrote:
| "Actor" architecture is supposed to enable high developer
| productivity but it's been a decade since the article so I wonder
| how it's working out? The most prominent project of which I am
| aware is FoundationDB.
| clarry wrote:
| > it's been a decade since the article so I wonder how it's
| working out?
|
| What article? The actor model dates back to 70s much has been
| written about its various implementations and incarnations
| since then.
|
| If you don't treat it like a theoretical model of computation
| (like Hewitt does), then what's left is various largely
| unrelated architectures that employ message passing, with
| various levels of granularity.
|
| I don't think any claim about higher developer productivity can
| be made without specifying what it's being compared to.
| staticassertion wrote:
| The actor model is at least 50 years old if not more, and it is
| found in all sorts of places in some form, which is
| unsurprising since it is a fundamental model for computation.
| So, for example, it is not hard to argue that SOA/Microservices
| are implementations of an Actor approach to services.
| thedance wrote:
| Sure, sorry, I meant the actor model in C++ specifically,
| according to the papers published by the authors of the
| library that is in this post.
| clarry wrote:
| If someone's got a nice actor library written in and for C, I'm
| all hears.
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