OpenEuphoria

Re: Threads [Was: Re: 64 bit euphoria]

• Posted by Mario Steele <eumario at trilake.net> Apr 29, 2005
• 533 views

Several things to note here, both on Emulated Threads, and the Hyper Threading
stuff.

First off, Emulated Threads.  Yes, this is a great idea, till you run into 1
small problem.  You hit a litteral brick wall, when you attempt to use C API,
that is a BLOCK call.  Your whole program stops, even when running emulated
threads, and your program won't do anything, till that call is finished, and
during which time, it is very well possible, if not definate, that the entire
thread system will get knocked out of balance, and causing some fatal errors.

If you do not belive it yourself, test it with any of the BLOCKING calls of the
Winsock library, or even File I/O, let alone any C/C++ API that does not return
control to the caller, till it has finished.  You will see, that this will throw
everything right out the door.

As for Hyper Threading, and Wrapping Thread ideas.  Yes, this can be done.  Can
it be done safely?  No.  Will it actually work?  Most likely not.  Why?  Cause
Euphoria isn't designed to be Thread Safe.  It isn't designed to have multiple
instances of Euphoria code, to be running con-currently.  In other words people
if prodcedure a was called, it will not allow procedure b to be called, or
executed till a is finished.  And therefore, that leads us back to the entire
point of Threads in Euphoria.

Rob has said this, and I'll say it again.  Euphoria cannot do threads naturally,
till Threads are implemented at the Interpreter Level, and not as emulated, but
true Threads.  For the simple fact, that the interpreter is only concerned for
running the current instruction, and accomplishing it, before moving on to the
next instruction.  That is the entirety of needing threads in Euphoria.

*steps off the podium, and walks away*

Mario Steele
http://enchantedblade.trilake.net
Attaining World Dominiation, one byte at a time...