Understanding Actors in Gleam and their Type System Integration

Raúl Chouza's talk at Code BEAM America 2024 focuses on the Gleam programming language and its approach to implementing actors within its type system. Gleam is a typed language for the BEAM, aiming to bring type safety to the ecosystem, differing from languages like Erlang and Elixir. Chouza explains how Gleam’s type system works and how it can facilitate error handling and process modeling. He delves into creating actors in Gleam, comparing them to gen_servers in Erlang and Elixir, and highlights how Gleam handles subjects and selectors to manage asynchronous and concurrent work. Additionally, a demo of a card game built with Gleam is presented, showcasing the practical application of actors in managing complex interactions and maintaining state.