On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 10:15 PM, Todd Blanchard <tblanchard at mac.com> wrote:
> It seems that there is a general assumption that threads will remain the
> unit of computational parallelism.  After attending Apple's WWDC and seeing
> some of the stuff in Snow Leopard, I don't believe this assumption is
> correct.
> Simply saying smalltalk threads must map to system threads is short sighted
> I think.  There are new models in the pipe that bear looking at.
> "Snow Leopard delivers unrivaled support for multi-core processors with a
> new technology code-named "Grand Central," making it easy for developers to
> create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs.
> Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing
> Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of
> GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications.
> OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an
> open standard."
> Apple press release.  The unit of computation is not pthreads.  There is
> recognition that threads only get you so far and it is looking like it isn't
> far enough.
> I think there's a major game change afoot and it is too early to make bets.

+1