Snapshot Algorithm Animation with Erlang

Abstract: Algorithms used in distributed systems for synchronization can often be hard to understand, and especially for beginners these concepts can be difficult to apprehend. Seeing an animation of these concepts could help to gain insight about how they work. The Snapshot algorithm (Chandy-Lamport) is one of these. But what is a good animation of an algorithm? What characteristics do an animation need to be considered as good? This thesis describes an analysis of those characteristics and a development of an animation software for the Snapshot algorithm using a game engine written in Erlang.