Actors: the stage is set

The software systems being developed by artificial intelligence researchers are no different in many respects from the systems being developed by the business and scientific communities. They are large, intricate systems often very difficult to implement if they must also be understandable, reliable and maintainable. The AI community has been developing their own ideas to deal with the construction of such systems; ideas whose application is not restricted to the AI domain. This paper introduces the concept of actors, discusses their properties, and describes how actor systems and languages are being used in application areas outside AI. 17 references.