From: Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@...>
Date: 2005-09-27T10:37:32+09:00
Subject: Re: tuple-space patterns and lock-free data structures (was: Ruby Threads 101)


On Sep 26, 2005, at 8:33 PM, Zed A. Shaw wrote:

> Ben,
>
> I had a lot of fun implementing the following patterns as a way of
> avoiding almost all Thread primitives in a distributed video
> processing system and boosting performance quite a bit:
>
> http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~croft/research/agent/tuplespaces/
>
> In fact, Ruby comes with a nice tuple space implementation, so you
> could take the above patterns, implement single instance versions, and
> then try to distribute them.
>
> Those patterns are also good examples of why the logical proof of
> single machine thread primitives does not instantly extend to
> distributed processing.  They are much simpler to use and do
> exactly the same thing as distributed locking with nothing more than
> simple tuple-space semantics rather than the complicated mutex and
> semaphore semantics.
>
> I would also take a look at the work done on lock-free data structures
> and algorithms.  Lots of really great stuff that basically shows you
> don't need locking on many data structures.  Even more proof
> that 1970's locking technology needs to be rethunk.
>
> My favorite fun project is doing a Replicated-Worker pattern with just
> message queues.  Sure the Queue needs locking, but why do you need to
> know that?
>
> Enjoy!
>
> Zed A. Shaw
> http://www.zedshaw.com/
>
>

Speaking of lock-free data sructures (sort of) has anyone ever  
implemented Erlang or E -style promises in Ruby?