ubikation

[ubikation]

Troubles with instantiating Akka in ABCL

So it turns out I've been getting stuck on some small issues. I finally figured out that the reason that Akka couldn't be instantiated without causing an exception is that it depends on an assumed classloader being present. From my understanding, this is done by analyzing the current thread. For some reason ABCL makes the Java code go up the wrong tree when looking for it, so it has to be fed in manually ala:

        ClassLoader classLoader = akka.actor.ActorSystem.class.getClassLoader();

        system = ActorSystem.create("default",                                     ConfigFactory.load(),                                     classLoader);

instead of the often cited example of simply:

system = ActorSystem.create();

It took me 2 weeks to figure that out. But at least it's something! Now I just have to actually implement/debug all the API calls...

[ubikation]

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ABCL Interop with Akka

So this blog is kind of my way of posting about what I'm thinking about and working on so that I'll actually complete it.

Right now I'm really interested in Akka. I don't really pay that much attention to the Scala world outside of checking Typesafe announcements every now and then... but Akka really stands out.

What is Akka?

Akka is a message passing system that scales over cores and in a distributed manner. Basically... it brings async data manipulation to a whole new level, and makes it something anybody on the JVM can use.

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What do I want to do with Akka?

I want to create decent bindings to Akka for ABCL.

This shouldn't be that difficult... as in I don't think there are any real unknowns here. There is another actor library called Common-Lisp-Actors by Naveen Sundar G. at https://github.com/naveensundarg/Common-Lisp-Actors as well as the basic API for Akka, so I should be able to cobble something together given enough time.I'm still trying to wrap my head around stuff... but I think I'd like to try and see how to integrate the distributed factor of Akka if I get a chance.

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Where am I stuck? Right now I am stuck trying to recreate the Hello World Akka Java demo... but I think I'm almost there. Time will tell of course!

After that I would like to create a simple benchmark as well. You can't control what you don't measure, right?