From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2004-10-04T05:37:20+09:00
Subject: Thinking about Threaded IO

I've not used Ruby's threads before, so I have what will probably be 
some basic questions.  I'm pretty familiar with using native thread 
systems, but these "in processor" threads raise some questions for me.

I'm especially wondering about IO.  I've read that Ruby's threads can 
be dangerous when making possibly lengthy calls to the operating 
system.  How does that affect threaded servers in Ruby?  If you call 
gets() on a socket, does the program hang until that socket produces 
input containing a \n character?  If so, what's the best solution?  Use 
non-blocking IO techniques?

I guess that's a pretty specific example and I am interested in the 
affects of this type of threading on networking code, but let me ask 
something more general.  When should I be stopping to worry if this 
action I'm threading will stall the whole program?  Where is this 
generally a problem?

Thanks.

James Edward Gray II