Akka implements `Oz-style dataflow concurrency <http://www.mozart-oz.org/documentation/tutorial/node8.html#chapter.concurrency>`_ by using a special API for :ref:`futures-scala` that allows single assignment variables and multiple lightweight (event-based) processes/threads.
Dataflow concurrency is deterministic. This means that it will always behave the same. If you run it once and it yields output 5 then it will do that **every time**, run it 10 million times, same result. If it on the other hand deadlocks the first time you run it, then it will deadlock **every single time** you run it. Also, there is **no difference** between sequential code and concurrent code. These properties makes it very easy to reason about concurrency. The limitation is that the code needs to be side-effect free, e.g. deterministic. You can't use exceptions, time, random etc., but need to treat the part of your program that uses dataflow concurrency as a pure function with input and output.
The best way to learn how to program with dataflow variables is to read the fantastic book `Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming <http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/%7Epvr/book.html>`_. By Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi.
Getting Started (SBT)
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Scala's Delimited Continuations plugin is required to use the Dataflow API. To enable the plugin when using sbt, your project must inherit the ``AutoCompilerPlugins`` trait and contain a bit of configuration as is seen in this example:
