From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Simon Josefsson Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs Lisp and Guile Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 17:38:26 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200207200035.g6K0ZAb27891@aztec.santafe.edu> <200207212015.g6LKF4c00874@aztec.santafe.edu> <200207251807.g6PI75d07615@aztec.santafe.edu> <874renlito.fsf@zagadka.ping.de> <200207271853.g6RIre710837@aztec.santafe.edu> <200207310554.g6V5ssc16508@aztec.santafe.edu> <200208021743.g72HhkX01596@aztec.santafe.edu> <200208071424.g77EO1103149@wijiji.santafe.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1028734709 6120 127.0.0.1 (7 Aug 2002 15:38:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 15:38:29 +0000 (UTC) Cc: marius.vollmer@uni-dortmund.de, neil@ossau.uklinux.net, raeburn@raeburn.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17cStH-0001ab-00 for ; Wed, 07 Aug 2002 17:38:27 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17cTEw-0001nu-00 for ; Wed, 07 Aug 2002 18:00:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17cStx-0000Kh-00; Wed, 07 Aug 2002 11:39:09 -0400 Original-Received: from 178.230.13.217.in-addr.dgcsystems.net ([217.13.230.178] helo=yxa.extundo.com) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17cStW-0000A5-00; Wed, 07 Aug 2002 11:38:42 -0400 Original-Received: from latte.josefsson.org (yxa.extundo.com [217.13.230.178]) (authenticated bits=0) by yxa.extundo.com (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g77FcPi2001709; Wed, 7 Aug 2002 17:38:25 +0200 Original-To: rms@gnu.org Mail-Copies-To: nobody X-Hashcash: 020807:rms@gnu.org:4c03b068e34326ff X-Hashcash: 020807:marius.vollmer@uni-dortmund.de:05b67568d88b86d1 X-Hashcash: 020807:neil@ossau.uklinux.net:62ea2125d036ba0d X-Hashcash: 020807:raeburn@raeburn.org:9877d71885cf3f41 X-Hashcash: 020807:emacs-devel@gnu.org:81091a0aad8eadc6 In-Reply-To: <200208071424.g77EO1103149@wijiji.santafe.edu> (Richard Stallman's message of "Wed, 7 Aug 2002 08:24:01 -0600 (MDT)") Original-Lines: 21 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090008 (Oort Gnus v0.08) Emacs/21.3.50 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:6341 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:6341 Richard Stallman writes: > This assumes that only one thread is running at a time. It wouldn't > work for a machine with multiple CPUs where threads can run at the > same time and the concept of a "thread switch" does not exist. Maybe > we don't want to care about this, which I would be very happy with. > > It is useful for Guile to support real parallel execution of threads, > but it is not important for Emacs. Having multiple threads in Emacs > will be very useful, but it is perfectly adequate if only one thread > can run at a time. I beg to differ -- one fundamental design principle in GUI design is that the user interface should never "hang" due to processing in the application. The user should be able to see e.g. the toolbar and the buttons and tooltips etc should be updated even when Emacs is processing something. Ideally long standing operations should have a "Stop" button in the toolbar that aborts the operation. Perhaps this isn't in direct conflict with your statement though, if the thread switching is fast enough so that users doesn't notice it.