Multi-threading the interpreter

sqrmax at cvtci.com.ar sqrmax at cvtci.com.ar
Sat Nov 14 21:08:36 UTC 1998


Hi.

>I may be wrong, but it appears that the Squeak interpreter is single
>threaded. (At least that is the impression I get from looking at interp.c,
>and observing the behaviour during a net-based "upgrade".) For those of us
>interested in using Squeak in an IPC environment, this single thread
>operation can be a problem. For example, if a Squeak process calls a
>numerically intensive external process (say using a TCP/IP based
>primitive), everything is "on hold" until that external process returns.
>Any ideas on how to deal with that problem? A possibility would be to allow
>asynchronous communication with primitives. Has that been done?

There's Smalltalk MT...

.... and it would be nice to take a look at hardware designed to perform 
multitasking, to copy the hardware design into the software design. The Amiga 
motherboard, for instance, is a well known and yet simple multitasking piece of 
hardware.

Andres.





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