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!