From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <9ec1e4e59a6d111588ad2a506f1bb5e2@quanstro.net> References: <1252012116.16936.5128.camel@work.SFBay.Sun.COM> <9ec1e4e59a6d111588ad2a506f1bb5e2@quanstro.net> Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 14:45:47 -0700 Message-ID: <3e1162e60909031445h7b09d381ya0c220d5ca1b40bb@mail.gmail.com> From: David Leimbach To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=000e0cd4a5cc7290c90472b34ece Subject: Re: [9fans] "Blocks" in C Topicbox-Message-UUID: 632306a4-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 --000e0cd4a5cc7290c90472b34ece Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 2:35 PM, erik quanstrom wrote: > On Thu Sep 3 17:09:01 EDT 2009, rvs@sun.com wrote: > > Anything can be done using regular C and threads. The trick here > > is to make everything *scalable* and *painless* enough so that > > mere mortals can start benefiting from parallelism in their code. > > > > The other trick here is to find a model that makes things *natural*, and > > that means practically no explicit locking, less shared state, etc. > > > > The search for the model is meaningless unless it is used for > > solving *practical* challenges. In that respect, one of my > > favorite article is how implementation of a chess engine > > influenced Cilk framework (which almost has the notion of a "block") > > http://supertech.csail.mit.edu/papers/icca99.pdf > > > > Read it, I don't think we can be on the same page (and escape the > > armchair philosophy trap) unless we are talking about practical > > applications of the framework. > > > > Look at the chess example -- can the same be done with pure C? Sure! > > Did Cilk make it less painful? Absolutely! > > my question was, what's naming your function pointers > or not got to do with locking? i'm asking about the language > construct, not the library er i mean "framework" and maybe runtime > that goes with it. > > Maybe if you see the block implementation you wouldn't think it was merely naming a function pointer? http://clang.llvm.org/docs/BlockImplementation.txt Dave > - erik > > --000e0cd4a5cc7290c90472b34ece Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 2:35 PM, erik qua= nstrom <quans= tro@quanstro.net> wrote:
On Thu Sep =A03 17:09:01 EDT 2009, rvs@sun.com wrote:
> Anything can be done using regular C and threads. The trick here
> is to make everything *scalable* and *painless* enough so that
> mere mortals can start benefiting from parallelism in their code.
>
> The other trick here is to find a model that makes things *natural*, a= nd
> that means practically no explicit locking, less shared state, etc. >
> The search for the model is meaningless unless it is used for
> solving *practical* challenges. In that respect, one of my
> favorite article is how implementation of a chess engine
> influenced Cilk framework (which almost has the notion of a "bloc= k")
> =A0 =A0http://supertech.csail.mit.edu/papers/icca99.pdf
>
> Read it, I don't think we can be on the same page (and escape the<= br> > armchair philosophy trap) unless we are talking about practical
> applications of the framework.
>
> Look at the chess example -- can the same be done with pure C? Sure! > Did Cilk make it less painful? Absolutely!

my question was, what's naming your function pointers
or not got to do with locking? =A0i'm asking about the language
construct, not the library er i mean "framework" and maybe runtim= e
that goes with it.


Maybe i= f you see the block implementation you wouldn't think it was merely nam= ing a function pointer?

http://clang.llvm.org/docs/BlockImplem= entation.txt

Dave
=A0
- erik


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