Behaviors

[Richard Wells]

Hi.

Any plans in the works to add behaviors to Thespian?  Similar to Akka or Akka.net.

Thanks,

Rick

[Kevin Quick]

Hi Rick,

There are no current plans to implement a Behaviors analog, primarily because this hasn't been requested.  If there is enough interest, this concept could be explored as a future addition to Thespian.

In Akka, the behavior essentially determines a state of the Actor that is used to guide the handling of the next message(s).  This can currently be achieved in Thespian by directly expressing state:

    class MyActor(Actor):

        def __init__(self, *args, **kw):

            super(MyActor, self).__init__(*args, **kw)

            self.mystate = 0

        def receive_Message(self, msg, sender):

            if self.mystate == 0:

                .... handling in state 0

            elif self.mystate == 1:

                .... handling in state 1

            ...

The equivalent to Akka's `Behaviors.stopped` is `self.send(self.myaddress, ActorExitRequest())`, and the Akka `Behaviors.setup` is handled by the `__init__()` method for the Actor.

If you see additional benefits to implementing Behaviors in Thespian (and especially if I've missed some aspects of their Akka implementation) please let me know: I'm not opposed to extending Thespian to support them but would like to make sure the additional feature benefit outweighs the additional complexity.

Regards,

   Kevin

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-KQ

[Richard Wells]

Thanks Kevin,

If I'm the only one requesting it then it's probably not worth implementing.  But I tell you, once a developer uses behaviors, I believe that they'll gain a great appreciation for them in defining state machines within actors.  But in the mean time I'll use your suggestion.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Rick

[Kevin Quick]

Hi Rick,

The state machine aspect may be interesting to explore re: behaviors.  One issue I've often run into though in adding state to Actors is that the state tends to conflict with the ability to restart or scale out the number of actors (e.g. the troupe functionality).  How have you handled these types of issues in your Actor state machine implementations?

Regards,

  Kevin

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-KQ