Expert to Expert: Meijer and Chrysanthakopoulos - Concurrency, Coordination and the CCR

Posted By: Charles | Jan 16th @ 12:56 PM | 63,922 Views | 29 Comments
In this episode of Expert to Expert, programming language designer Erik Meijer chats with CCR creator George Chrysanthakopoulos. We've spent a good deal of time on Channel 9 addressing the Concurrency Problem and the various approaches Microsoft is taking in an effort to help solve it. George's CCR is a piece of managed technology (.NET) that provides an unusually high degree of concurrency for developers targeting Windows. The Coordination and Concurrency Runtime has been around for about five years. How are people using it today to build scalable concurrent systems? What's the current state of the CCR and what's it's future? Why is the CCR a better approach to scalable distributed concurrent programming than other technologies out there? Is concurrency the real issue? George believes that it's all about coordination(the other C in CCR) and concurrency is really just a side effect of coordinating systems. If you get distributed coordination right, then you have a concurrent system that can scale. Really? Do explain, dear George (oh, and he does and as passionately as you'd expect from him). This is a fantastic conversation. Classic Channel 9.

Enjoy!
Rating:
6
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#Jan 16th @ 7:34 PM
RobertL
RobertL
Epic! Best video on C9 so far. And that says a lot.
#Jan 16th @ 11:49 PM
dot_tom
dot_tom
Does anyone else think that if we could somehow plug Erik and George into the power grid we could solve the energy crisis Wink Joking aside, another brilliant video. It would be a poorer programming, intellectual and creative world without Channel 9 that's for damn sure.
#Jan 17th @ 1:57 AM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
I'm happy to hear you enjoyed this! George and Erik make for great edutainment. There are so many nuggets of wisdom in this piece that you'll be able to mine successfully for quite some time. 

I promise not to point my camera into a window again (sorry about that, but I did not want to stop the conversation to set up George on the other side of the room - just as George made the comment in this discussion thatconcurrency happens, so too do conversations and I hate to mess with the real time alchemy of my Channel 9 interviews...) and limit my dumb questions to just one or two!

C
#Jan 17th @ 5:39 AM
nagunn
nagunn
Thanks Charles. Great watch. And you were as good as your word about asking George about CCR uptake. My interpretation was that, being outside of the Developer Division they haven't necessarily had access to the marketing muscle available within it. Nevertheless, kudos to you and Channel 9 for following the CCR over the past 5 years - to paraphrase Erik, there are popular things and there are important things...
#Jan 17th @ 6:28 AM
stevo_
stevo_
Human after all
I love the CCR, I've said this various times before .. I really need to start playing with it in order to fully appreciate where I could use it.
#Jan 17th @ 12:17 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
Thanks for the feedback!

I'd like to start up a discussion (on this thread) regarding two very interesting points brought up in this conversation:

1) Concurrency happens
  • Coordination should be your focus. Concurrency is a side effect of well-coordinated systems
  • Understanding and handling failure is paramount to acheiving reliable (and reasonable) coordination

2) Mash-Ups as a good conceptual model for programming coordinating systems (well, Mash-Ups that are able to communicate across constituent boundaries...)

I think these are very important concepts that deserve some more discussion and thought.

Coordinatingly,
C

#Jan 17th @ 2:22 PM
aL_
aL_
Rx ftw
way cool Smiley cant watch right now but i will so do it later Smiley
george is awsome and he has a way to describe things that make all the alternatives seem stupid Smiley still, ive found the ccr somewhat difficult to approach (but then again, what is my puny brain against those of erik and george Wink ) also, i feel like making orchestrations in MSRDS is somewhat detached from the rest of the development experince :/ i wonder of vs10 will bring the ccr more into mainstream development Smiley i hope so atleast Smiley (maybe this is talked about in the video)

i'll comment more on the points that you bring charles after ive watched the video but i generally think that concurency and cordination always happens and have happend for a long time, but we as mainstream programmers have only recently started paying attention to it Smiley its an interesting topic indeed Smiley
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