From: Wim Vander Schelden <wim.vanderschelden@...>
Date: 2007-01-29T01:28:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Benefits of Multi-Threading?

NanoStuff schreef:
> I'm slowly going through the pickaxe, and i've hit the multi-threading
> chapter. Despite all the juicy information, I can't seem to gather what
> the actual benefits of multi-threading on a single processor are.
>
> Is performance improved despite the limitations of one processor, or is
> there a completely performance unrelated purpose to multi-threading that
> I missed entirely?
>
> On another note, how does shared hosting like Dreamhost handle parallel
> processing? (I know this is irrelevant in relation to Ruby's
> multi-threading), but merely for future reference... will the host allow
> your application to use up as many of it's processors as it sees fit, or
> will it simply refuse to run?
>
> Thanks a bunch!
>
>   
Shared hosting usually lets you use up as much as you want, which 
explains the poor performance most shared hosts have: people with poorly 
written scripts end up using a lot of CPU and there is only so much to 
go around for all clients on the host. When you have threads that run 
for a really long time, or threads that use up a lot of CPU frequently, 
your host will most likely mail you to complain about you, and tell you 
to fix it or get dedicated hosting. Some hosts also have a maximum limit 
of threads per user, but you shouldn't worry about that.

Wim

-- 
Wim Vander Schelden
Bachelor Computer Science, University Ghent

http://nanoblog.ath.cx
My weblog, powered by Ruby and BSD licensed.