Actor model and process calculi

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In computer science, the Actor model and process calculi are two closely related approaches to the modelling of concurrent digital computation. See Actor model and process calculi history.

There are many similarities between the two approaches, but also several differences (some philosophical, some technical):

• There is only one Actor model (although it has numerous formal systems for design, analysis, verification, modeling, etc.); there are numerous process calculi, developed for reasoning about a variety of different kinds of concurrent systems at various levels of detail (including calculi that incorporate time, stochastic transitions, or constructs specific to application areas such as security analysis).
• The Actor model was inspired by the laws of physics and depends on them for its fundamental axioms, i.e. physical laws (see Actor model theory); the process calculi were originally inspired by algebra (Milner 1993).
• Processes in the process calculi are anonymous, and communicate by sending messages either through named channels (synchronous or asynchronous), or via ambients (which can also be used to model channel-like communications (Cardelli and Gordon 1998)). In contrast, actors in the Actor model possess an identity, and communicate by sending messages to the mailing addresses of other actors (this style of communication can also be used to model channel-like communications—see below).

The publications on the Actor model and on process calculi have a fair number of cross-references, acknowledgments, and reciprocal citations (see Actor model and process calculi history).