Akka in Action, Second Edition

2 Up and running

This chapter covers

• Defining an actor and its behavior
• Instantiating and sending messages to an actor
• Keeping state in the actor with a variable
• Keeping state in the actor with its behavior
• Scheduling sending a message

This chapter covers in practice the basic parts of Akka from the previous chapter: creating an actor, sending messages to actors, and setting actors’ behavior. It also explains how to handle state and send messages with a scheduled delay.

Without further ado, let’s start with a minimal Akka application: a wallet into which you can deposit money. This can be part of a larger application that handles betting on sports events with money from the wallet. You learn how to create such a betting application later in ...