From: Ned Konz <ned@...>
Date: 2002-06-07T04:43:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Weightless threads?

On Thursday 06 June 2002 12:29 pm, Radu M. Obad� wrote:
> I was reading through IBM Developer Works newsletter today, and I
> came agains something very interesting: weightless threads. This is
> mentioned in the Python column. They say that they incur virtually
> no overhead, and that one could run a large number of them even on
> a mediocre machine. I was wondering, has anybody had any experience
> with those?

Sure; Squeak (Smalltalk) has very lightweight threads. People have had 
upwards of 10000 threads with no problems.

It's a very simple architecture: there is a queue of ready-to-run 
processes at each priority level. And Semaphores keep lists of 
waiting processes, as well.

There is just enough VM support to do the actual process switch.

-- 
Ned Konz
http://bike-nomad.com
GPG key ID: BEEA7EFE