add initial managed process tutorial skeleton

Tim Watson · Tim Watson · commit 3e9e4feef659 · 2013-01-31T21:25:25.000Z
diff --git a/_layouts/managedprocess.html b/_layouts/managedprocess.html
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+  <head>
+    {% include head.html %}
+    <style>
+      body { padding-top: 0px; }
+     .navbar-fixed-top { position: relative !important; }
+    </style>
+    <link href="/css/sidenav.css" rel="stylesheet">
+  </head>
+  <body data-spy="scroll" data-target=".sidebar"> <!-- data-offset-top="10">-->
+    {% include nav.html %}
+    <div class="container">
+      <ul class="breadcrumb">
+        <li><a href="/">Home</a> <span class="divider">/</span></li>
+        <li><a href="#">Tutorial</a> <span class="divider">/</span></li>
+      </ul>
+    </div>
+    <div class="container">
+      <div class="row">
+        <div class="span3 sidebar">
+          <div data-spy="affix" data-offset-bottom="290">
+            <ul class="nav nav-list sidenav">
+              <li><a href="#introduction"><i class="icon-chevron-right"></i> Introduction</a></li>
+           </ul>
+          </div>
+        </div>
+        <div class="span9">
+          {{ content }}
+        </div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+    {% include footer.html %}
+    {% include js.html %}
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/documentation.md b/documentation.md
@@ -511,8 +511,8 @@ just provides callback functions which take some state and either return a
 new state and a reply, or just a new state. The process is *managed* in the
 sense that its mailbox is under someone else's control.
 
-A slightly more complex example of the `ManagedProcess` API can be seen in
-the [Managed Processes tutorial][22]. The API documentation is available
+More complex examples of the `ManagedProcess` API can be seen in the
+[Managed Processes tutorial][22]. API documentation for HEAD is available
 [here][21].
 
 [1]: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Cloud_Haskell
diff --git a/tutorials/3.managedprocess.md b/tutorials/3.managedprocess.md
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+layout: managedprocess
+categories: tutorial
+title: Managed Process Tutorial
+---
+
+### Introduction
+
+In order to explore the `ManagedProcess` API, we will present a simple
+example taken from the test suite, which exercises some of the more
+interesting features.
+
+Let's imagine we want to execute tasks on an arbitrary node, using a
+mechanism much as we would with the `call` API from distributed-process.
+As with `call`, we want the caller to block whilst the remote task is
+executing, but we also want to put an upper bound on the number of
+concurrent tasks. We will use `ManagedProcess` to implement a generic
+task server with the following characteristics
+
+* requests to enqueue a task are handled immediately
+* callers will block until the task completes (or fails)
+* an upper bound is placed on the number of concurrent running tasks
+
+Once the upper bound is reached, tasks will be queued up for later
+execution, and only when we drop below the limit will tasks be taken
+from the backlog and executed.
+
+`ManagedProcess` provides a basic protocol for *server-like* processes
+such as this, based on the synchronous `call` and asynchronous `cast`
+functions. Although `call` is synchronous, communication with the
+*server process* is out of band, both from the client and the server's
+point of view.
