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Carl Hewitt develped The Actor Model at MIT in 1973, inspired by an early demonstration of Smalltalk. I believe that actors are the next paradigm of programming. I am developing an actor-oriented language called Misty.
I initially adopted a theatrical metaphor, but I found that it was confusing to people. They accepted the metaphor, expecting that these actor things had special occupational affinity to the acting profession, more so than to any other profession. That was confusing to them, so I had to work to undo the faulty assumptions that the metaphor affords.
It was so problematic that I looked for a better word. I tried other candidates but found nothing that works. I took another look at the closest relative, object, and was struck by how ridiculously vague object is. So by comparison, actor is not so bad if it is meant as a thing that performs an action in response to something else. I think this works really well. We do not need all the drama.
It allows me to talk about a bad actor, which now means an actor with malicious intent, not an actor with no talent.