Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:29:10 -0700 From: David Schultz <das@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: freebsd-threads@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: LinuxThreads replacement Message-ID: <20030715082910.GA34696@HAL9000.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <3F13B1B4.8765B8F3@mindspring.com> References: <007601c3467b$5f20e960$020aa8c0@aims.private> <004d01c348ae$583084f0$812a40c1@PETEX31> <16146.65087.69689.594109@emerger.yogotech.com> <3F13B1B4.8765B8F3@mindspring.com>
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On Tue, Jul 15, 2003, Terry Lambert wrote: > > ps. Yes, the above was written tongue-in-cheek. People who make broad > > statements like Terry often makes deserve to have their statements > > thrown back at them. Threads, like any other tool used by programmers, > > can be used for both good and evil purposes, depending on the ability > > and experience of the programmer doing the work. [...] > Yes, this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it's easier to write > threads code than an FSA, such that a lesser coder is still able to > be productive. As a class, it's a tool I would lump in with things > like "perl". Actually, event-based programming is usually easier, since it does not require synchronization. A number of people, myself included, think that threads are overused, and often used incorrectly. But as Nate pointed out, threads are useful for many purposes, the most fundamental of which are SMP scalability and reduced latency. Also, threads are simply the natural programming model for many applications. For instance, you wouldn't rewrite the FreeBSD kernel to use one thread per processor with an event loop and L4-style continuations, would you?
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