Re: Threads in emacs implementation

[Nic Ferrier]

jhd <address@hidden> writes:

>>> The greatest obstacle to this seems to be shallow binding - you'd  
>>> have
>>> to unwind one thread's stack and rewind another's when switching
>>> threads.  Maybe there's an easier way that I don't see...
>>>
>>
>> I don't see why this subject keeps coming up.
>>
>> We don't need threads in elisp. Just more asynchronous network
>> implementations.
>>
>> Anyway, async code is so much more fun to write than threaded
>> code. Threads are for beginners.
>
> Async network code won't take advantage of multiple CPU:s.  Threads
> do.

Pth, for example, won't take advantage of multiple CPUs. 

I think elisp is always going to need a huge amount of blocking to use
OS threads because of the nature of dynamic scope.

Emacs does already get an advantage from multiple CPUs because it uses
co-processes a lot. Co-processes are much less burdensome on
multi-core architectures. The best way to handle co-processes is with
async IO.


Nic