Social Machines (ACM SE '13, Savannah, GA)

These were used for the poster session at the Association for Computing Machinery Southeast Conference 2013.

Transcript

1. SOCIAL MACHINES A server-side programming language. Every object is a concurrent unit of computation, libraries can be shared like peers in a BitTorrent network, and communication between peers is encrypted. Mark Stahl ACMSE '13
2. GOALS & OBSERVATIONS 1. Every object is an isolated, concurrent unit, easing the burden of the programmer by removing the need to choose whether to thread code. 2. All modern languages are designed for writing a single application running on a single machine. The network is an afterthought and therefore punished to APIs. This is invalid due to the ubiquity of the Internet. 3. The privacy of all communications, whether computational in nature or not, is paramount. All messages between local and remote should be encrypted.
3. INFORMATION • Open Source (GNU AGPL v3.0, BSD) • Hosted at: https://github.com/mjstahl/socialmachines • Implemented in Google's Go programming language • v0.3 is approximately 3K SLOC
4. SEMANTICS The core of the semantics is Carl Hewitt's Actor Model. All objects exhibit three core behaviors: • Create Objects • Receive Messages • Send Messages All message sending is asynchronous except to Promises, which are ALWAYS local. Promises are first-class (passed as arguments, receive messages, send messages, etc.)
5. IMPLEMENTATION ROADMAP Q1 2013 (COMPLETE) v0.1 - Scanner, Parser v0.2 - Runtime v0.3 - Distribution Q2 2013 (IN PROGRESS) v0.4 - Assignment, Block Arguments, Cascades v0.5 - Integers v0.6 - Arrays, "Message Patterns" Q3 2013 v0.7 - Strings, Characters v0.8 - Hash Tables, Symbols v0.9 - Floats Q4 2013 v0.10 - Attributes (state), Byzantine Paxos
6. ASYNCHRONOUS MESSAGES 2. Send Asynchronous Message (foo) 3. Send Asynchronous Message (value:) 1. Create Promise
7. SYNCHRONOUS MESSAGES 1. Send Synchronous Message (foo) No Value - hold onto message, blocking sender. Value - Create Promise, return it to sender, forward message to value 3. Create Promise 4. Return Promise to Sender 2. Send Asynchronous Message (value:) 5. Send Asynchronous Message (foo) 6. Send Asynchronous Message (value:)
8. SYNTAX (Definitions) + True not => { False } + True & aBool => { aBool ifTrue: { True } ifFalse: { False } } + True ifTrue: tBlock ifFalse: fBlock => { tBlock value }