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< Erlang ~ the difference between concurrent prog. and distributed.prog |
| Seb |
 Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:30 pm |
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Joined: 10 Mar 2008
Posts: 5
Location: Canada
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Hello everyone!
I am a Comp. Sci student and I'm writing a paper on Erlang for one of my classes..... What I have trouble understanding is the difference between concurrent programming and distributed programming ..... It seems to me that concurrent programming and distributed programming are exactly the same thing ...
Erlang claims to be a concurrent language and a distributed language at the same time .....
Any explanations ?
Best regards,
new Erlang user |
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| bluefly |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:11 pm |
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Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 10
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They are very close. I think a simple way to look at it is that concurrency is another way to say "parallel", where as distributed means I have allotted (distributed) my tasks to various workers.
Generally, when people in the industry mention the word "distributed", they are referring to things like SETI At Home and other programs that are run on many computers. When they speak of "concurrency", they are referring to processes operating at the same time, often on the same computer.
As far as semantic games go, you can start by saying that all distributed programs are also concurrent. Then throw in the thought that just because you sent a job to be done by another worker does not mean that worker is going to immediately pick up the job and perform it. How loose is your definition of concurrent?
Erlang supports concurrency and distribution at the same time because its model is effectively the same in both situations. You do not have to change your message sending/receiving just because you added more nodes to the mix. |
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