README.md

README.md

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+# Prospect: A Networked, Concurrent, Functional Programming Language
+
+Prospect is an actor-based concurrent language able to express
+communication, enforce isolation, and manage resources.
+Network-inspired extensions to a functional core represent imperative
+actions as values, giving side-effects locality and enabling
+composition of communicating processes.
+
+Collaborating actors are grouped within task-specific *worlds* (a.k.a.
+virtual machines) to scope their interactions. Conversations between
+actors are multi-party (using a publish/subscribe medium), and actors
+can easily participate in many such conversations at once.
+
+Prospect makes *presence* notifications an integral part of pub/sub
+through its *shared dataspaces*, akin to
+[tuplespaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple_space). Each shared
+dataspace doubles as the pub/sub subscription table for its world.
+Actors react to *state change notifications* reporting changes in a
+dataspace, including new subscriptions created by peers and removal of
+subscriptions when a peer exits or crashes. State change notifications
+serve to communicate changes in demand for and supply of services,
+both within a single world and across nested layers of
+worlds-within-worlds. Programs can give up responsibility for
+maintaining shared state and for scoping group communications, letting
+their containing world take on those burdens.
+
+## The code
+
+This repository contains a [Racket](http://racket-lang.org/) package,
+`prospect`, which includes
+
+ - the implementation of the `#lang prospect` language, in the
+   [`prospect` directory](https://github.com/tonyg/prospect/tree/master/prospect/).
+
+ - a TCP echo server example, which listens for connections on port
+   5999 by default, in
+   [`prospect/examples/echo.rkt`](https://github.com/tonyg/prospect/tree/master/prospect/examples/echo.rkt).
+   Connect to it using, for example, `telnet localhost 5999`.
+
+ - a handful of other examples, in
+   [`prospect/examples/`](https://github.com/tonyg/prospect/tree/master/prospect/examples/).
+
+## Compiling and running the code
+
+You will need Racket version 6.2.x or later.
+
+Once you have Racket installed, run
+
+    raco pkg install prospect
+
+to install the package from the Racket package repository, or
+
+    raco pkg install --link `pwd`
+
+from the root directory of the Git checkout to install the package
+from a local snapshot. (Alternatively, `make link` does the same thing.)
+This will make `#lang prospect` available to programs.
+
+At this point, you may load and run any of the example `*.rkt` files
+in the
+[`prospect/examples/`](https://github.com/tonyg/prospect/tree/master/prospect/examples/)
+directory.
+
+## Copyright
+
+Copyright © Tony Garnock-Jones 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015.