Hi Levente,

> On Jan 17, 2016, at 7:30 AM, Levente Uzonyi <leves at caesar.elte.hu> wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 16 Jan 2016, Eliot Miranda wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Levente Uzonyi <leves at caesar.elte.hu> wrote:
>> 
>>      On Sat, 16 Jan 2016, Mariano Martinez Peck wrote:
>> 
>>      (Still no quote.)
>> 
>>      How will you read the output of the process without having your image's process blocked in the FFI callout?
>>      How will you make sure that writes to input of the process won't block the FFI callout?
>> This presupposes the threaded FFI.  The threaded FFI allows the VM to make any number of blocking calls, adding a new thread to run the VM whenever the VM is stalled when the heartbeat beats.  hence one can freely read and write to/from i/o blocking i/o streams
>> (including pipes and sockets) or blocking database connexions, etc, all without stating that the FFI call must be done in a special way, since all calls through the FFI can block without blocking the VM.
> 
> I think it was you who said (in a discussion with Craig) that the threaded FFI was not production ready. Is it ready for produciton now?

No, but I expect this is the year it will be.  Spur provides pinning, so the VM infrastructure is there.  The Pharo community plus some commercial relationships that have developed are providing funding.  Esteban Lorenzano and I want to collaborate on this and I hope to get help from some other people, such as Ronie Salgado.  And Mariano is working on an important part of the problem.  So I feel there's sufficient momentum for us to realize the threaded FFI this year.

> Levente


_,,,^..^,,,_ (phone)

>> Note that the scheme is also amenable to plugins, but the plugins must be rewritten to include the release vm/acquire vm calls around a blocking call.  With the threaded VM the FFI includes these calls around every FFI call.
>> HTH
>> _,,,^..^,,,_
>> best, Eliot