From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <308eb6e73128a002166664dce3dea5ea@brasstown.quanstro.net> References: <308eb6e73128a002166664dce3dea5ea@brasstown.quanstro.net> Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:36:17 -0700 Message-ID: <3e1162e60910190736m32fcfcd1v2032e7a7a0c51113@mail.gmail.com> From: David Leimbach To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=000e0cdf195227015c04764aabc0 Subject: Re: [9fans] Barrelfish Topicbox-Message-UUID: 8aa62d8c-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 --000e0cdf195227015c04764aabc0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 6:44 AM, erik quanstrom wrote: > > At the hardware level we do have message passing between a > > processor and the memory controller -- this is exactly the > > same as talking to a shared server and has the same issues of > > scaling etc. If you have very few clients, a single shared > > server is indeed a cost effective solution. > > just to repeat myself in a context that hopefully makes things > clearer: sometimes we don't admit it's a network. and that's > not always a bad thing. > > - erik > > Yes, we abstract things so it doesn't look like it is... so we can have a programming model where we don't have to care about keeping all the distributed bits in sync. However, I get the feeling that those abstractions, at any level, suffer from the same weaknesses. Well I think that's why certain RISC instruction sets have instructions like eieio anyway :-) Dave --000e0cdf195227015c04764aabc0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 6:44 AM, erik qu= anstrom <quan= stro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> At the hardware level we do have message passing between a
> processor and the memory controller -- this is exactly the
> same as talking to a shared server and has the same issues of
> scaling etc. If you have very few clients, a single shared
> server is indeed a cost effective solution.

just to repeat myself in a context that hopefully makes things
clearer: =A0sometimes we don't admit it's a network. =A0and that= 9;s
not always a bad thing.

- erik

Yes, we abstract things so it doesn't look li= ke it is... so we can have a programming model where we don't have to c= are about keeping all the distributed bits in sync.

However, I get the feeling that those abstractions, at any level, suffer fr= om the same weaknesses. =A0 Well I think that's why certain RISC instru= ction sets have instructions like eieio =A0anyway :-)

<= div> Dave --000e0cdf195227015c04764aabc0--