undefined | Better HN

0 pointsBatmanAoD6y ago0 comments

I hadn't heard of "synchronous concurrency", but looking at the Céu paper (only briefly so far), I think the model looks very close to how `async`/`await` works in Rust - possibly even isomorphic. This is really exciting, because Rust's model is unique among mainstream languages (it does not use green threads or fibers, and in fact does not require heap allocation), and I wasn't previously aware of any similar models even among experimental languages.

I'll open a thread on users.rust-lang.com to discuss the similarities/differences with Céu, but for now, here's the main similarity I see:

A Céu "trail" sounds a lot like an `async fn` in Rust. Within these functions, `.await` represents an explicit sync-point, i.e., the function cedes the runtime thread to the concurrency-runtime so that another `async fn` may be scheduled.

(The concurrency-runtime is a combination of two objects, an `Executor` and a `Reactor`, that must meet certain requirements but are not provided by the language or standard library.)

0 comments

vanderZwan6y ago

That is a correct understanding of how `await` works in Céu. What is important to note however is that all trails must have bounded execution, which means having an `await` statement. One abstraction that Céu uses is the idea that all reactions to external events are "infinitely" fast - that is, all trails have bounded execution, and computation is so much faster than incoming/outgoing events that it can be considered instantaneous. It's a bit like how one way of looking at garbage collected languages is that they model the computer as having infinite memory.

Having said that, the combination of par/or and par/and constructs for parallel trails of execution, and code/await for reactive objects is like nothing I have ever seen in other languages (it's a little bit actor-modelish, but not quite). I haven't looked closely at Rust though.

Céu also claims to have deterministic concurrency. What it means by that is that when multiple trails await the same external event, they are awakened in lexical order. So for a given sequence of external events in a given order, execution behavior should be deterministic. This kind of determinism seems to be true for all synchronous reactive languages[0]. Is the (single-threaded) concurrency model in Rust comparable here?

The thesis is a bit out of date (only slightly though), the manual for v0.30 or the online playground might be a better start[1][2].

[0] which is like... three languages in total, hahaha. I don't even remember the third one beyond Esterel and Céu. The determinism is quite important though, because Esterel was designed with safety-critical systems in mind.

[1] https://ceu-lang.github.io/ceu/out/manual/v0.30/

[2] http://ceu-lang.org/try.php

BatmanAoDOP6y ago

I'm not sure I see the connection between bounded execution and having an `await` statement. Rust's `async` functions, just like normal functions, definitely aren't total or guaranteed to terminate. They also technically don't need to have an `await` expression; you could write `async fn() -> i32 { 1 + 1 }`. But they do _no_ work until they are first `poll`ed (which is the operation scheduled by the runtime when a function is `await`ed). So I believe that is equivalent to your requirement of "having an `await` statement". You could even think of them as "desugaring" into `async fn() -> i32 { async {}.await; 1 + 1 }` (though of course that's not strictly accurate).

I think it's reasonable to consider well-written `poll` operations as effectively instantaneous in Rust, too, though since I haven't finished the Céu paper yet I don't yet understand why that abstraction is important to the semantics of trails.

As for `par`/`or` and `par`/`and`, I expect these are equivalent to `Future` combinators (which are called things like `.or_else`, `.and_then`, etc).

Since Executors and Reactors are not provided by the language runtime, I believe it would be easy (possibly even trivial) to guarantee the ordering of `Future`-polling for a given event. I am guessing that for Executors that don't provide this feature, the rationale is to support multi-threaded waking (i.e. scheduling `poll` operations on arbitrary threads taken from a thread pool). When using `async`/`await` in a single thread, I'd be mildly surprised if most Executors don't already support some kind of wake-sequencing determinism.

In any case, I've now opened a discussion on users.rust-lang about whether Rust can model synchronous concurrency: https://users.rust-lang.org/t/can-rusts-async-await-model-th...

vanderZwan6y ago

In Céu, an `await` statement is ceding execution to the scheduler. It is the point at which a trail goes to sleep until being woken up again. So "bounded" here means "is guaranteed to go to sleep again (or terminate) after being woken up". The language does not compile code loops if it cannot guarantee that they terminate or not have an `await` statement in every loop.

I'll try to explain how the "instantaneousness" matters for the sake of modelling determinism. Take the example of reacting to a button press: whenever an external button press event comes in, all trails that are currently awaiting that button press are awakened in lexical order. Now imagine that there are multiple trails in an infinite loop that await a button press, and they all take longer to finish than the speed at which the user mashes a button. In that case the button events are queued up in the order that they arrive. If the user stops then eventually all button presses should get processed, in the correct order.

The idea is that external events get queued up in the order that they arrive, and that the trails react in deterministic fashion to such a sequence events: if the exact same sequence of events arrives faster or slower, the eventual output should be the same. So while I might produce congestion if I mash a button very quickly, it should have the same results as when I press them very slowly.

Now, you may think "but what if you were asked to push a button every two seconds, with a one second time-window? Then the speed at which you press a button does matter!" Correct, but in that case the two second timer and one second time window also count as external events, and when looking at all external events then it again only matters in what the order in which all of these external events arrive at the Céu program.

Lacking further knowledge about Rust I obviously cannot say anything about the rest of your comment, but I hope you're right about the `Future` combinators because I really enjoyed working with Céu's concurrency model.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

vanderZwan6y ago

The thesis is a bit out of date (only slightly though), the manual for v0.30 or the online playground might be a better start[1][2].

[1] https://ceu-lang.github.io/ceu/out/manual/v0.30/

[2] http://ceu-lang.org/try.php

BatmanAoDOP6y ago

As for `par`/`or` and `par`/`and`, I expect these are equivalent to `Future` combinators (which are called things like `.or_else`, `.and_then`, etc).

In any case, I've now opened a discussion on users.rust-lang about whether Rust can model synchronous concurrency: https://users.rust-lang.org/t/can-rusts-async-await-model-th...

vanderZwan6y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse