On 10-Jan-06, at 2:48 PM, Timothy Reaves wrote:

> Why does doing this block all other threads in the VM, including  
> the UI?
>
It doesn't. Which is to say:-
-the threads in this case are not in the VM (the vm doesn't have much  
to do with Squeak threads except for finding the highest priority  
runnable one and making it active) but in the image.
-it's not so much blocking the UI process as simply running in it and  
not calling World doOneCycle (or whatever)  as part of its work.

I'm not sure one would want the rest of the UI to be responsive when  
loading packages. Depending on the package it might be loading new  
code that affects things currently running. Kind of nice to let it  
all load and install and get to a proper stable state (hopefully!)  
before returning control to the user.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: DSO: Do Something or Other