Concurrency

[Sean Kelly]

janderson wrote:
> Given that the world of PC are heading down the path of muti-cpus:
> 
> What features does D supply to take advantage of concurrency, over an 
> above what can be accomplished though C++ today?

A definition of 'volatile' that works.  I'd say more, but "can be 
accomplished" is a pretty broad category.

> How could the language be improved to be better at concurrency problems 
> then other languages?

Improved support for advanced concurrency features.  I've seen a test 
copy of CSP for D, which is a nice start.  And futures wouldn't be very 
difficult to write in library code.  Really, I think it comes down to 
finding simpler ways to break up the traditionally sequential nature of 
imperative code.  A good bit of work still needs to be done here even at 
the research level, as I haven't seen any solution yet that's without 
problems.  Oh, software transactional memory might be an interesting 
experiment as well.

> I'm just thinking that, perhaps if concurrency is handled well enough in 
> D, it can catch the wave of parallel programming that is on the horizon.

I'd be surprised if it didn't.


Sean