[Yhc] some initial questions

[Robert Dockins]

On Mar 3, 2006, at 5:29 AM, Thomas Shackell wrote:

>> That is very good to hear.  It seems to me that the two biggest  
>> issues are:
>> -- supporting multiple execution stacks
>> -- blocking I/O and FFI calls
>> How did you decide to handle these problems (mostly for my  
>> curiousity)?
>
> You're quite right, those were two of the biggest issues :-)
>
> The first thing to note is that concurrency is implemented in Yhc  
> by the interpretter running some instructions for one process, then  
> some more instructions for the next process and so on.
>
> This is rather than using one OS thread per Haskell process because  
> all processes can access the global heap, so if using OS threads it  
> would be necessary to either lock every heap access (incredibly  
> slow) or use some of the truely nasty tricks that concurrent GHC uses.
>
> The first problem, as you note, is that originally we only had one  
> stack but now every process needs its own stack. After considering  
> possible options I decided the easiest way was:
>    - process stacks become normal nodes in the heap, and are garbage
>      collected like other heap nodes. This preserves the property that
>      we can't run out of heap but not stack (and vice versa).


[snip]

How do you detect when a process runs out of stack?  Do you calculate  
the max stack usage from the bytecode and check before you push a new  
stack frame?


> Now going back, the approach of running some instructions from one  
> thread then some more from another is fine providing every  
> instruction runs quickly. They all do, with one exception,  
> PRIMITIVE. This is because PRIMITIVE is used for IO actions/FFI calls.
>
> The solution? Well the basic idea is "just spawn an OS thread to do  
> the IO action while the main thread continues running Haskell".

[snip]

How do you deal with OS threads portably?  I assume you use pthreads  
for *nix.  Does windows know pthreads or did you create some thin  
wrapper over OS specific threading?


> Hope that answers your questions :-)

Yes, thank you!



Rob Dockins

Speak softly and drive a Sherman tank.
Laugh hard; it's a long way to the bank.
           -- TMBG