[squeak-dev] n-core Smalltalk at work [Re: Hydra now can do mitosis]

Klaus D. Witzel klaus.witzel at cobss.com
Sun Feb 22 15:09:40 UTC 2009


On Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:36:30 +0100, Igor Stasenko wrote:

> Update.
> you can download binaries from here
> ftp://ftp.squeak.org/HydraVM/latest_builds/win32/HydraVM-bin-22.02.2009.zip
>

Let me add 2-3 bits: first we also have to thank Alexandre "Alex" Bergel  
and Guillermo "Guille" Adrián Molina for discussing with us earlier  
approaches to running Smalltalk on n-core CPUs in parallel.

2nd: what expression (HydraClone new cloneIdleProcess) does for you, is it  
runs the computational task which is described by the corresponding object  
subgraph, in a *new* native thread (with own heap and instance of  
HydraVM). Therefore, on your n-core CPU you can expect that computation is  
spread among the cores. The #cloneIdleProcess example does just what its  
name says: it runs Smalltalk's idle process ;) as proof of concept.

You Smalltalkers may have other Smalltalk processes that you want to run  
in parallel on their own native thread; let us know how we can help you  
with that.

And in case you need communication between two or more .images, Hydra  
comes with its channel facility.

/Klaus

-- 
"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it".  
Albert Einstein




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