Requirements

Software

The system will require several pieces of software, including an operating system, interpreters and several libraries.

Python

I will use Python as the main programming language, as I feel it is the easiest language to write code in. It provides several different means of combination and abstraction, along with the property of closure which is important in the development of complex, scalable systems as a way of reducing complexity. Python also has built-in support for threading, and an extensive standard library, which means it will require very little else to build a fully working system.

The recommended version of Python for this system will be at least 2.4 or above, mainly due to the changes made in the standard library and the language itself which will render the code incompatible with earlier versions.

The Twisted Library

Twisted is a library for Python which provides a suite of network functionality; the main feature which will be used is the ability to quickly develop a server which can act over TCP/IP, along with optional SSL/TLS security layers with minimal configuration.

The reason for using this library in my program is to provide the ability for networking actors across several different computers, networked via TCP/IP. This will allow the system to expand indefinitely, making available huge amounts of computing power to a network of actors.