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at:tutorial:actors [2009/01/29 16:48] elisagat:tutorial:actors [2009/09/30 13:31] – added tvcutsem
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 ==== The Concept ==== ==== The Concept ====
  
-The most well-known language feature in concurrent and distributed languages (for example, in ABCL, the actor-based concurrent language) to reconcile return values with asynchronous message sends is the notion of a  [[Wp>Future_(programming)|future]]. Futures are also commonly known by the name of //promises// (this is how they are called in the [[http://www.erights.org|E language]] and in Argus). Futures are objects that represent return values that may not yet have been computed. Once the asynchronously invoked method has completed, the future is replaced with the actual return value, and objects that referred to the future transparently refer to the return value.+The most well-known language feature in concurrent and distributed languages (for example, in ABCL, the actor-based concurrent language) to reconcile return values with asynchronous message sends is the notion of a  [[Wp>Future_(programming)|future]]. Futures are also commonly known by the name of //promises// (this is how they are called in the [[http://www.erights.org|E language]] and in Argus). Wikipedia has [[Wp>Futures_and_promises|an excellent article]] about promises, futures and their differences. 
 + 
 +Futures are objects that represent return values that may not yet have been computed. Once the asynchronously invoked method has completed, the future is replaced with the actual return value, and objects that referred to the future transparently refer to the return value.
  
 Using futures, it is possible to re-implement the previous example of requesting our calculator actor to add two numbers as follows: Using futures, it is possible to re-implement the previous example of requesting our calculator actor to add two numbers as follows:
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 <note> <note>
-More details about the ''Due'' annotation can be found in the section about [[distribution#dealing_with_permanent_failures|leased object references]] within the chapter about distributed programming.+More details about the ''Due'' annotation can be found in the section about [[distribution#dealing_with_permanent_failures|leased object references]] in the chapter on distributed programming.
 </note> </note>
  
at/tutorial/actors.txt · Last modified: 2020/02/05 21:26 by elisag