[fpc-devel] Light weight threads for FPC

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Michael Schnell wrote:
> David Butler wrote:
>> A big difference between threads and fibers in Windows is that threads 
>> are preemtively scheduled, while fibers are co-operatively scheduled.
> That sounds very logical.
> 
> I gather cooperative scheduling is not possible when distributing the 
> work on multiple processors. So using fibers are no option for the kind 
> of "light weight threads" requested by the OP.
>>  
>> Unfortunately, Windows' fiber implementation has severe limitations.
> No wonder :)
>>  
>> To get around this I created a library that does real light-weight 
>> "fibers".
> I suppose as they run in a single system thread they are no option for 
> the kind of "light weight threads" requested by the OP.

Is there really much difference between what Windows terms "a fiber" and what 
Modula-2 etc. terms "a coroutine"? A thread is little more than a 
preemptively-scheduled coroutine, and it's always seemed slightly perverse to 
define fibers in terms of threads rather than the other way round.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

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