Re: Threads and asyncs

[Marius Vollmer]

Tom Lord <address@hidden> writes:

>       > Is there no use for thread-independent system-asyncs?
> 
>       I can't think of any, right now.  
> 
> Any short computation that needs to be invoked asynchronously (say,
> perhaps, driven by a timer) is a candidate.  One can imagine efficient
> I/O working this way, for example; or simple animation of some sort in
> a GUI.

Hmm, I'd like to see these as thread-independent sources of async
activation, not as thread-independent asyncs.  A timer could be
configured to mark a particular async to run in whatever thread is
current when the timer goes off.  Likewise when I/O becomes possible.

Compared to thread-independent asyncs, you will only notice a
difference when there is a thread switch between the time an async is
marked and the original thread next checks for asyncs.  If that ever
becomes a problem, we can make a thread check its asyncs before
switching away from the CPU.

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