Programming Distributed Computing Systems fills the long-standing need for a self-contained account of distributed programming that combines presentation of underlying formal semantic models along with the design and use of distributed languages and frameworks based upon them. The book's primary focus on actor models makes it an especially useful resource for those studying the foundations of an increasing number of actor-based frameworks, languages, and platforms. Additional coverage of alternative models and languages provides a basis for those pursuing different ways of programming distributed systems.

Doug Lea Computer Science Department, State University of New York at Oswego

This book deals with one of the most important topics in computer science”it explains what a concurrent programming model is and what it's good for. While most books focus on a specific programming language or technology, this book really shows the power of the mathematical ideas at the basis of popular languages like Java or C#.

Paolo Ciancarini Professor of Computer Science, Department of Informatics, University of Bologna

With the explosive growth of the Internet in the twenty-first century, distributed programming is at the very heart of today's digital society. But it remains a difficult skill to master, both conceptually and practically. Carlos Varela's book makes a big step toward remedying this situation. It uses three languages to cover a full spectrum of distributed abstractions. I highly recommend Varela's book to all developers and researchers who are looking for better ways to express their distributed thoughts!

Peter Van Roy Professor at Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium