Assessing design patterns for concurrency

Abstract

In this report we address the lack of design patterns in the message passing concurrency setting by adapting existing design patterns from the object-oriented paradigm to Erlang, a language based on the message passing concurrency setting. Over the years, the object-oriented community has been reaping the benefits associated with the adoption of design patterns, such as design reusability, design flexibility, and a common vocabulary for the articulation of design ideas. The object-oriented community has been a primary adopter of design patterns, and design patterns are often considered to belong exclusively to this paradigm. In this report we argue that is not the case. We attempt to show that the benefits associated with design patterns can also be achieved in a message passing concurrency setting by implementing a number of existing concurrency related patterns using Erlang. We then integrate these patterns in the design and implementation of a peer-to-peer file sharing application that serves as a case study in the analysis of the applicability and feasibility in the adoption of design patterns to this paradigm.