From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jonathan Rockway Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Very interesting analysis of "the state of Emacs" Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 13:59:21 -0500 Message-ID: <87prs5n94m.fsf@bar.jrock.us> References: <481693C3.70901@emf.net> <4816CDB6.6000006@pajato.com> <4817D79F.8040508@gmail.com> <874p9jhsa7.fsf@localhorst.mine.nu> <87bq3qodp4.fsf@bar.jrock.us> <87od7qikyc.fsf@catnip.gol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1209668389 1429 80.91.229.12 (1 May 2008 18:59:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 18:59:49 +0000 (UTC) To: Emacs Devel Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu May 01 21:00:24 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Jre0q-0005BG-Ul for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 May 2008 21:00:13 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:43686 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Jre0A-0007lY-0j for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 May 2008 14:59:30 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Jre05-0007jz-Dh for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 May 2008 14:59:25 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Jre03-0007hs-QS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 May 2008 14:59:25 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=44019 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Jre03-0007hp-GR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 May 2008 14:59:23 -0400 Original-Received: from dsl092-134-091.chi1.dsl.speakeasy.net ([66.92.134.91] helo=bar.jrock.us) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Jre02-0002BR-Ur for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 May 2008 14:59:23 -0400 Original-Received: by bar.jrock.us (Postfix, from userid 1000) id D4F127443D4; Thu, 1 May 2008 13:59:21 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: <87od7qikyc.fsf@catnip.gol.com> (Miles Bader's message of "Thu, 01 May 2008 15:42:51 +0900") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:96287 Archived-At: * On Thu, May 01 2008, Miles Bader wrote: > Jonathan Rockway writes: >> The issue is when we start putting global variables into the mix: > ... >> Anyway, hopefully someone has some ideas on what to do here. I admit I >> haven't looked at how sxemacs handles this yet. Maybe we can just deal >> with locks? At least in that case my IMAP mail could download while I >> am typing in another buffer :) > > If the multi-threading were cooperative (as rms suggested), then such > problems would obviously be a bit easier to manage -- you can basically > just say "no context switches except at well defined points", and define > these "points" to be (1) user interaction/recursive edits [where the > user can do something to "screw up the state" even today], or (2) > explicit calls to yield. Yeah, thinking about this some more, I definitely agree with you. 99.9% of emacs works fine the way it is, so this seems like the cleanest way to make long operations not block. I don't know the emacs core well enough to start implementing this, but I would be glad to help out if someone else takes the lead. :) Regards, Jonathan Rockway -- print just => another => perl => hacker => if $,=$"