Re: Concurrency

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:37:51 -0600 Tom Tromey <address@hidden> wrote: 

>>>>>> "Ted" == Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:
GS> http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/emacs/other-branches/concurrency/

Ted> I'd like to look at it.  Is there a quick-start guide that explains the
Ted> changes and how to get started?

Tom> Nope.  However, there aren't really many new Emacs primitives.

Tom> On my branch I had run-in-thread (and a convenience wrapper macro,
Tom> with-new-thread), and yield.  Giuseppe's branch was slightly different,
Tom> and I think he added some mutex support as well; I still haven't looked
Tom> at these.

Tom> I can explain the bulk of the C changes if you want to understand those.

I'd love to know what's in Giuseppe's branch from the perspective of a
user.  Specifically, I want to know how a rewrite of the Gnus summary
buffer entry and threading might work in the new system.  But that's a
big undertaking so some simple demos would be better:

- a demo that increments a shared variable up to 10 with two threads
  that fight over the lock

- a map/reduce demo of totaling a list of numbers with N threads

- retrieve some network data asynchronously using threads, not async
  processes

Those demos would necessarily show the new primitives in a practical
way.  You or Giuseppe can explain the internals as well, that would be
helpful, but demos are really useful.

Thanks
Ted