Threads don't scale, processes do - Fibers

[Sean Kelly]

Oliver Dathe wrote:
>> I find the concept of userland scheduling and green threads 
>> interesting and would work on this with you if you wish.
> 
> I'd really like to follow up on this, in collaboration even better! 
> Unfortunately I'm very busy until some time in October.
> 
> However, feel free to do what you like and I'd enjoy dicussing. Have you 
> had any similar plans before?
> 
>> Interpreted languages such as Erlang can pause their green threads / 
>> green processes easily; not so with natively compiled code. This may 
>> be one of the largest issues with scheduling native fibers. You might 
>> be able to get around it with enough hacks, though some would have to 
>> involve your OS's kernel, I have no doubt.
> 
> Yes, preemptive greenthreading would fit into this even better! But its 
> no prerequisite, so I chose the collaborative way with Fibers for this. 
> Not sure if the preemptive way could get accomplished with help of 
> signal handling in a safe way.

Solaris does preemptive greenthreading automatically, so you get it for 
free if you use pthreads on that system.  It's a pretty cool setup.


Sean