3 ms·

How similar is this to Flow Based Programming by Paul Morrison?

• platz 12y ago
  If fbp is a form of dataflow programming, I think you could say it is reactive.. I would try to separate data flow from the FRP style that reifies the time step into first-class values .e.g. w/ "signals" or "behaviors", or from the "arrowized" forms of FRP
  • chipsy 12y ago
    I've studied "fbp" in more depth than "frp" but my conclusions were that they do achieve very similar things with vastly different semantics and terminology. One of the interesting aspects of FBP and many dataflow systems is that it can also be defined as a schema for actor-model messaging. i.e. you still have the general actor model as the low level abstraction, but then you assume actors to be archetypal and immutable between runs of the network, existing only to implement a finite, typed, addressable number of "in" and "out" queues on each actor instance, which are subsequently configured into the final network. An explicit model of time is not used - "all messages delivered" is the standard termination state, but if one breaks the Morrison model to add local actor state again, it becomes trivial to defer message delivery across runs of the network.
    • platz 12y ago
      Nice - I've been waiting to find a spot to jump into dataflow style and the combination with actors you describe is interesting