From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tom Lord Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Non-system asyncs Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 01:05:39 -0700 (PDT) Sender: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <200210100805.BAA16328@morrowfield.regexps.com> References: <873crftmjr.fsf@zagadka.ping.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1034236993 32392 127.0.0.1 (10 Oct 2002 08:03:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 08:03:13 +0000 (UTC) Cc: mvo@zagadka.ping.de, guile-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17zYHo-0008QA-00 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 10:03:12 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 17zYDp-0004cF-00; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 03:59:05 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 17zYDC-0003iC-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 03:58:26 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 17zYDA-0003hs-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 03:58:25 -0400 Original-Received: from 1cust99.tnt13.sfo8.da.uu.net ([63.10.241.99] helo=morrowfield.regexps.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 17zYD9-0003fo-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 03:58:23 -0400 Original-Received: (from lord@localhost) by morrowfield.regexps.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA16328; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 01:05:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lord@morrowfield.regexps.com) Original-To: neil@ossau.uklinux.net In-reply-to: (message from Neil Jerram on 10 Oct 2002 08:03:30 +0100) Errors-To: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:1508 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.guile.devel:1508 >> [...] But I still don't see >> what the point of non-system asyncs is Asyncs (both "system" and "non-system") are a mechanism for scheduling asychronously invoked computation that can not be explained by the semantics of ordinary evaluation. My program is running along and, all of the sudden, out of the blue, some function is invoked whose invocation can't be explained by the source of the procedure being run at the time. That's an async. It's a partial alternative to threads for single-CPU applications. System interrupts are well-described by asyncs. Oops -- I got SIGHUP -- run the SIGHUP handler. But why does the kernel get to define the set of asyncs? Why not also have "synthetic asyncs"? It's a way to say to the implementation: "here's a computation that you should run as soon as you can, regardless of whatever else is going on". One might do incremental display updating that way, for example. -t _______________________________________________ Guile-devel mailing list Guile-devel@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-devel