From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2008-06-30T14:04:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Threads and Ruby

barjunk wrote:
> I've been hunting around for information regarding threads, and to me,
> it seems confusing and conflicting.
> 
> What I'm trying to find out is...if I was going to start using threads
> in Ruby, which version of Ruby should I be using.
> 
> I've seen folks say that I should use Ruby 1.9 and others say that it
> is possible to use earlier versions.  Nothing that I found seemed
> definitive.
> 
> I'm new to all this, so this may be part of the problem.
> 
> What I'd like to accomplish is starting a main ruby instance, then
> launch threads from that instance that run in their own sandbox.
> 
> At this point, I don't believe the threads need to talk with each
> other, but it seems I could use some form of message passing to
> accomplish this.
> 
> Any ideas and direction would be helpful.  Thanks.
> 
> Mike B.

I haven't used 1.9 much, but the impression I get is:

- use 1.9 if you need _native_ threads (e.g. to take advantage of 
multiple processors, or blocking system calls)

- use 1.8 if you want in-process threads, which are lighter and pretty 
good for multiplexing io calls (using select()).

If the threads don't need shared state, why not use fork instead of 
threads? You can use DRb for IPC.

-- 
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407