Domains: Sharing state in the communicating event-loop actor model

In this paper we present domains as a set of novel language abstractions for safely encapsulating and sharing state within the actor model. We introduce four types of domains, namely immutable, isolated, observable and shared domains that each is tailored to a certain access pattern on that shared state. The domains are characterized with an operational semantics. For each we discuss how the actor model׳s safety guarantees are upheld even in the presence of conceptually shared state. Furthermore, the proposed language abstractions are evaluated with a case study in Scala comparing them to other synchronization mechanisms to demonstrate their benefits in deadlock freedom, parallel reads, and enforced isolation.