Re: [MIT-Scheme-devel] No Multi-threading?

[Amit Saha]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 3:52 AM, Matt Birkholz
<address@hidden> wrote:
>> From: Amit Saha <address@hidden>
>> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:58:10 +0530
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Have been exploring 'mit-scheme' for a while now. The reference manual
>> doesn't talk about multi-threading primitives for 'mit-scheme'.
>>
>> What would it take to program multi-threaded servers and such using
>> 'mit-scheme'?
>
> Just refer to the runtime.pkg file.  The exports to the () package
> from (runtime thread) will give you an idea of what should be in the
> manual one day.

Okay. So, I hunted down: (define-package (runtime thread) and have
looked at the exported symbols. Whereas the symbol names are pretty
self-explanatory, their usage is not :). So is this where I will get
to know as I ask, or is there is a better place?


>
>> Was thinking on the lines of adding such capabilities via using
>> 'pthreads'.. Is it tangential?
>
> Yep, depending on what "multi-threaded servers" are.  If those are
> network servers, like your echo server, you should be able to spawn a
> thread to handle each accepted connection.  At the moment, each thread
> is a lightweight, Scheme thread.  The machine runs each for a
> time-slice, multitaskingly.  Note: one machine -- one host processor.

For now, I think I will explore multi-threading..

>
> If you are talking about multiprocessing (multiple machines running
> concurrently on multiple processors, sharing one heap), you are going
> to want to pick up where MultiScheme left off.  Unfortunately, Jim
> Miller's PhD thesis
>
>        MultiScheme: A Paralled Processing System Based on MIT
>        Scheme", J. Miller, TR-402, MIT LCS, Sept 1987
>
> does not seem to be available online.  Do you perchance have a BBN
> Butterfly? :-)

No :)

Best,
Amit
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