Re: Are there plans for a multi-threaded Emacs?

[Nic Ferrier]

address@hidden (Kim F. Storm) writes:

> I still wonder why people want multi-threading in Elisp -- IMHO, emacs
> works just fine without it!
> 
> I admit (synchronous) GNUS is a problem, but except for that, I don't
> really see that much code which will benefit vastly from being executed
> by a multi-threaded emacs.
> 
> And for GNUS, you can just run two instances of emacs on your
> multi-tasking OS.
> 
> Likewise, if you have some vast app writting in Elisp, just start
> a second emacs to run it.

I had wanted threads in elisp a while ago when I was working far away
from my home site. I was sending mail using my home MTA from Emacs on
a windows desktop. It was slow, really, really slow at connecting to
the MTA.

I've solved the problem now of course, I use a laptop with GNU on it
and run a local MTA and have that send stuff to my home MTA.

But if Emacs had threads I wouldn't have needed to do that.


Hmmm... maybe if most of the threading issues are with socket
communication then better sentinels would be a good idea. Maybe a
callback API for setting up and reading/writing to sockets would
really useful. Such an API would be a doddle to write of course.


Nic