Really cool Dave!  May I ask a couple of questions?

Is the initial object state of the forked image a clone of the forking
image, so I have access to all of the variables and objects?  For
example:

    RemoteTask
        do: [ someObjectInThisImage calculateComplexValue ]
        whenComplete: [ :calculatedValue | someObjectInThisImage
complexValue: calculatedValue ]

If some objects which were originally present in the forking image get
changed in the forked image, those changes are local to that image
memory only, is that correct?  I assume this is the case since you
mentioned "copy-on-write".

If the forked image returns one of the objects that was originally
present in the forking image (modified or not), I assume it is
returned as a "very deep copy" of the original, since you said it uses
ReferenceStream to instantiate the result answer.

Finally, you mentioned it "should" work on Mac, but is there any
reason it shouldn't work on Windows?

Thanks for this handy utility for easily distributing processing!

  Chris


On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 9:21 AM, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
> RemoteTask provides partitioning of processing tasks at the level of
> cooperating OS processes. For problems that can be partitioned into
> independent tasks running under the supervision of a Squeak image, such
> that each task performs a significant amount of processing and returns
> a moderately sized result, RemoteTask can provide substantial improvements
> in processing run time versus the equivalent serial processing when
> running on multi-core hardware.
>
> A task is scheduled in a working image with
>
>  RemoteTask do: taskBlock whenComplete: aOneArgumentBlock
>
> where taskBlock is the task to be scheduled in a forked Squeak image,
> and aOneArgumentBlock handles the result object when the remote task
> makes data available. Result data is returned through a ReferenceStream
> on the stdout pipe from the remote Squeak image. The forked Squeak image
> is headless and is quite memory efficient due to Unix copy-on-write
> for forked processes.
>
> RemoteTask may also be useful for evaluating a method that otherwise would
> block the VM, such as an FFI call to a long-running external function.
>
> RemoteTask is part of the latest CommandShell package on SqueakSource
> (CommandShell 4.5.0), and requires OSProcess as well as a Unix or Mac VM
> with OSProcessPlugin (it is helpful if the VM also has AioPlugin for process
> completion notification, although polling will be used if this is not present).
> I have tested only on Linux with standard VM and Cog, although I am hopeful
> that this will work on Mac also (confirmation would be appreciated).
>
> Following is an example of three processing tasks assigned to three Squeak
> worker images with results returned to the supervisory image on task
> completion.
>
> threeParallelTasks
>   "Find all primes in a range of large integers. Divide the problem into
>   three tasks running the three child images, and return the results to
>   the supervisory image. Answer a tasks array and a results array, where
>   the results array will be populated on completion of the tasks."
>
>   "RemoteTask threeParallelTasks"
>
>   | p1 p2 p3 results task1 task2 task3 |
>   results := Array new: 3.
>   task1 := [(100000000000000000000000000000
>               to: 100000000000000000000000019999)
>            select: [:f | f isPrime] thenCollect: [:s | s asString]].
>   task2 := [(100000000000000000000000020000
>               to: 100000000000000000000000039999)
>            select: [:f | f isPrime] thenCollect: [:s | s asString]].
>   task3 := [(100000000000000000000000040000
>               to: 100000000000000000000000059999)
>            select: [:f | f isPrime] thenCollect: [:s | s asString]].
>   "n.b. Assign task to a variable to prevent RemoteTask from being finalized"
>   p1 := RemoteTask do: task1 whenComplete: [:result | results at: 1 put: result].
>   p2 := RemoteTask do: task2 whenComplete: [:result | results at: 2 put: result].
>   p3 := RemoteTask do: task3 whenComplete: [:result | results at: 3 put: result].
>   ^ { #tasks -> { p1 . p2 . p3 } . #results -> results }
>
>
> Dave
>
>
>