tartjs

Stability: 1 - Experimental

JavaScript implementation of Tiny Actor Run-Time.

Contributors

@dalnefre, @tristanls

Usage

var Tart = require('tartjs');

var config = new Tart();

// create an actor that has no state and can't change behavior
var actor = config.createActor(function (event) {
    console.log('got message', event.message);
    console.dir(event);
});

// create a value actor that has state, but can't change behavior
var value = config.createValue(function (event) {
    console.log('got message', event.message); 
    console.log('actor state', event.data);
    console.dir(event);
}, {foo: 'bar'});

// create a serial actor that has state and can change behavior
var serial = config.createSerial(function (event) {
    console.log('got message', event.message);
    console.log('actor state', event.data);
    console.log('becoming something else');
    console.dir(event);
    
    event.sponsor.send(event.target, event.message);
    event.become(function (event) {
        console.log('got message with new behavior', event.message);
        console.dir(event);
    });
}, {foo: 'bar'});

config.send(actor, 'some message');
config.send(value, {some: 'other message'});
config.send(serial, {message: 'with', reference: actor});

Tests

npm test

Benchmarks

Erlang Challenge

Erlang Challenge consists of creating a ring of M actors, sending N simple messages around the ring and increasing M until running out of resources.

The benchmark implements a modified version of the challenge by creating 100,000 actors and running 10 simple messages around the ring.

npm run erlangChallenge
constructed 100000 actor ring
..........
done
all times in NANOSECONDS
construction time:
2900829022
loop times:
627685921
631848011
666029990
731236694
775333540
615891053
612743213
684856367
721228999
769791008
611477526
loop average:
677102029.2727273

Overview

The goal of tartjs is to provide the smallest possible actor library in JavaScript that has the full power of a "pure" actor model of computation.

Configurations

TODO

Actors

Actors consist only of behaviors and maintain no internal state. To create a new actor:

var Tart = require('tartjs');
var config = new Tart();
var actor = config.createActor(function (event) { /* ... */ });

Value Actors

Value actors consist of behaviors and state, but cannot change the behavior. To create a new value actor:

var Tart = require('tartjs');
var config = new Tart();
var value = config.createValue(function (event) { /* ... */ }, { /* state */ });

Serial Actors

Serial actors have state and can change their behaviors by using event.become() function. To create a new serial actor:

var Tart = require('tartjs');
var config = new Tart();
var serial = config.createSerial(function (event) { /* ... */ }, { /* state */ });

Documentation

TODO

Sources

• Tiny Actor Run-Time