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Zhang Design

Development Plan

During the initial stage of development, focus will be on best idiomatic use of Clojure and core.async programming to provide the desired features, without considering the implementation details of the Erlang distribution model.

  • Create a partial system using only core.async
  • System will entail a single JVM
  • Will support numerous in-JVM nodes
  • Add support for multi-JVM instances
  • IPC/UNIX domain sockets?
  • Add support for multi-host JVM instances
  • What protocol?

With a solid Clojure foundation in place, support will be added for the Erlang process and distribution model.

  • Integrate with epmd
  • Add support for the Erlang distribution protocol (wire-level)
  • Add support for OTP nodes
  • Add support for OTP message boxes

Clojure Implementation Tiers

Host-level Coordination

  • Is there sometihng comparable to epmd in the JVM ecosystem?

A Single JVM

  • Create Zhang JVM agent
  • Initial development: blue sky, no Erlangisms
    • New architecture taking advantage of the JVM/Clojure
      • Envision and develop a system without Erlang idiosyncracies
      • Reference original design goals of Erlang
      • Use net(ty) and core.async
      • Take maximal advantage of core.async features/abilities
    • Implement whole system in pure-Clojure
      • Process table

  • Atomic hash-map used as store for data

    • process list
    • next available pid
  • Message-passing to/from agent (via core.async)

  • Spawned Functions

  • Process List per JVM
  • Node list per host

Inter-JVMs, Same Host

  • IPC?
  • ???

Inter-host JVM

  • net/netty
  • ???

Erlang Implementation Tiers

empd Integration

  • Much of this already exists
  • Supporting functions
  • Use clozhang.epmd
  • Add erl-like feature that starts epmd if it’s not running

Distribution Protocol

  • Write a net/netty pipeline
  • Implement net encoder & decoder
  • ???
  • ???

OTP Nodes

TBD

OTP Message Boxes

TBD