An architecture and implementation of the actor model of concurrency

Abstract

In this paper we describe an architecture and implementation of the ACTOR model of concurrent computation which exploits the multi-core processors of modern day computer architectures. A novel aspect of our approach, and where it differs from many other implementations, is that it is hosted in an existing programming language as native constructs; we employ Swift which is rapidly rising in popularity but in its standard distribution lacks the facilities for true concurrent programming. We describe an extension to the language which enables access to concurrent features and provides an API for supporting such interactions. We consider the various architectural issues, competing approaches, and discuss early findings from our prototype implementation