Chapter 17. Looking ahead
In this chapter
- Statically typing messages with the akka-typed module
- Distributing in-memory state with Akka Distributed Data
In previous chapters we’ve hinted at several upcoming Akka features. Akka is a fast-moving project; at the time of writing, a couple of important features are under development that are worth mentioning and keeping track of.
This chapter will discuss two important features to look out for in the near future that are currently being developed. Every section will have a short preview of what the module enables or how it will change the way you currently use Akka features.
The actor model that’s described in this book uses untyped messages, as noted in chapter 1. Scala has a rich type system, and many developers are drawn to Scala because of type safety, which is why some argue against actors in their current form, especially if they’re used as components to build applications. We’ll look at the akka-typed module that will make it possible to write type-safe actors.
Another module to look out for is Akka distributed data. This module makes it possible to distribute state in-memory in an akka cluster using conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs). We’ll briefly discuss the module and what we expect you could use it for.