ActiveJava

Abstract: A project investigating and developing an implicitly concurrent programming language, based on a metaphor taken from the physical world is reported. Uses a programming paradigm where programs consist of systems of autonomous agents, or active objects which communicate via message passing. A language enhancing Java with actors and linear types is presented. Example programs are written, compiled, and executed to evaluate the usefulness of the language. The language found to provide a familiar notation for implicit parallelism, and a compelling new model for concurrency, combining the performance of shared variables with the elegance of message passing.

Introductory Slides (PDF), Report (PDF),
ActiveJava compiler prototype (ajavac), ActiveJava runtime library (ajava_lang).

Examples:

calc - pocket calculator actor program
dining - dining philosophers actor program (never deadlocks)
sort - parallel quicksort implementation ("SortBenchmark" sorts 10,000 random integers using actors, java threads, and sequentially and compares)

To compile examples use:

compile.bat ./calc
compile.bat ./sort
compile.bat ./dining

To run examples use:

run ./calc Main
run ./dining Main
run ./dining Main fast
run ./sort Main
run ./sort SortingBenchmark

readme.txt

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Example programs in "ActiveJava" (a java extension for actor based concurrency)
Copyright 2008 Tristan Aubrey-Jones.

To compile examples use:

compile ./calc

compile ./sort

compile ./dining

To run examples use:

REM pocket calculator actor program
run ./calc Main

REM dining philosophers actor program (fast runs at full speed)
REM (never deadlocks)
run ./dining Main
run ./dining Main fast

REM parallel quicksort implementation
REM (sorts 10,000 random integers)
run ./sort Main

REM (sorts 10,000 random integers using actors, java threads, and sequentially and compares)
run ./sort SortingBenchmark