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Re: Multi-threading vs. Multi-processing?
At 18:05 Uhr -0500 14.02.1997, John C. Mallery wrote:
>Of course, a 21st century programming language would allow for mobile code to
>be distributed to multiple machines for execution and fan-in results.
>This mechanism might be used analogously between processes. It just
>go to show that ideas about computation don't stop evolving to
>oblige fixed standards.
One possibility would be to use an active, distributed CLOS database.
You could run application code in the distributed database.
The database will for example do query optimization and
see on which node it should process the query on, etc.
So if your code is based on a distributed CLOS model,
you can add processors/images.
But for the core CL-HTTP it might be cool to have it running
on a multiprocessor Lisp technology (Top-Level CL, ABCL,
Paralation Lisp, *Lisp, ...).
ILU is a another thing.
>>And, I don't know anything about cl-http with MCL on the Mac -- but,
>>how well does the server work with something like a DayStar
>>4-processor machine?
>
>I don't know. MCL is not yet multiprocessor aware, but that could change
>in the next release, given the rate at which Digitool moves.
On the Mac there is the Radius MP library. One could use this to
add foreign code. But on the Mac I guess there not that much you can
really do with parallel computations for network
applications (for example serving pages on two network cards),
due to the non-reentrant nature of the MacOS. Threading on
the Mac is non-preemptive, still the Radius MP library
is preemptive. So there will be a lot of limits for these
threads. This may change in a future OS (NeXT OS is also
not yet MP capable), whatever it will look like.
For such a Lisp, Windows NT and various MP-capable Unix systems would
be the natural choice.
It might be a good idea to let your vendor know what your
needs are and then the vendor will have to see if
its possible and earns money for him/her. ;-) Depending
on the answer you wil have to see if he/she is still
your vendor. But right now you don't have a choice.
Rainer Joswig
Rainer Joswig, Lavielle EDV Systemberatung GmbH & Co, Lotharstrasse 2b, D22041
Hamburg, Tel: +49 40 658088, Fax: +49 40 65808-202,
Email: joswig@lavielle.com , WWW: http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/
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