Re: New Swing Library (JFC)

[phw <P.H.Welch@xxxxxxxxx>]

Denis Nicole wrote:

> Gosh. I've just read the swindoc reference, and I had no idea how bad
> things had gotten.  The clear message is that Real Programmers don't use
> threads.  Unfortunately, this directly clashes with current evolution in
> both PCs/workstations---all Real Men/Women have dual Pentiums nowadays,
> unless they run bLeading Edge Alphas---and HPC; the US ASCI programme
> has typically at least 8 way multiprocessor nodes. 

... and I have a third Ph.D student (Kevin Vella) who has the KRoC kernel
working (apart from one unfound race hazard very infrequently scrambling
an over-stressed ALT) on a 4-processor SMP SPARC.  Parallel programs just
with PAR -- no channels or ALTs.  PAR quicksort really uses all the
processors ...

When we get the Pentium KRoC (real soon now), we'll add the SMP stuff.
Then, you can have really lightweight multithreading (300 nanosecs switch
times on 200 MHz Pentium IIs) that automatically get grabbed by any
processor wanting something to do ... and with the occam model!

Peter Welch.