From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <3aaafc130903031523h1be94cf1ta61e01fd0caab10e@mail.gmail.com> References: <138575260903030352s623807d7p5a3075b1f7a591f6@mail.gmail.com> <3e1162e60903030719v141b41e9ma5fd98c73d8b0e7c@mail.gmail.com> <1236103870.4929.101.camel@goose.sun.com> <3aaafc130903031508v5e4b3d96n2b53677049e086f6@mail.gmail.com> <5d375e920903031515x7b25dc5hd1ced6d098bd02d0@mail.gmail.com> <3aaafc130903031523h1be94cf1ta61e01fd0caab10e@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 18:54:08 -0500 Message-ID: <9ab217670903031554g24339eedmd68f20809173329d@mail.gmail.com> From: "Devon H. O'Dell" To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [9fans] threads vs forks Topicbox-Message-UUID: ae62f6d4-ead4-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 2009/3/3 J.R. Mauro : > Concurrency seems to be one of those things that's "too hard" for > everyone, and I don't buy it. There's no reason it needs to be as hard > as it is. That's a fact. If you have access to The ACM Queue, check out p16-cantrill-concurrency.pdf (Cantrill and Bonwich on concurrency). > And nevermind the fact that it's not really usable for every (or even > most) jobs out there. But Intel is pushing it, so that's where we have > to go, I suppose. That's simply not true. In my world (server software and networking), most tasks can be improved by utilizing concurrent programming paradigms. Even in user interfaces, these are useful. For mathematics, there's simply no question that making use of concurrent algorithms is a win. In fact, I can't think of a single case in which doing two lines of work at once isn't better than doing one at a time, assuming that accuracy is maintained in the result. --dho