When and how to use the actor model: An introduction to Akka.NET actors

The actor model is an old computer science concept, originating in 1973 and it laid dormant is largely a thought experiment for most of its history until the rise of the Internet. Now in the era of cheap, commodity cloud computing the actor model is staging a major comeback across all programming languages and runtimes, both for building distributed systems and for creating reactive mobile or desktop applications.

In this talk, we will introduce the actor model through the use of Akka.NET, the most popular distributed actor model framework in .NET. We'll talk about what sorts of problems it solves well when you should use it, and what are some of the adoption costs and overhead involved in using a tool like Akka.NET.

By the time you're finished with this talk, you should be familiar with most of the major Akka.NET and actor model concepts, basic Akka.NET syntax, and some ideas for how you might be able to use actors in your place of work. This talk is intended for developers, architects, and team leads.