On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 14:57:33 +0900, Robert Klemme <bob.news / gmx.net> wrote:
> 
> "zuzu" <sean.zuzu / gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:a988e9f60407081357560a9592 / mail.gmail.com...
> 
> > On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 19:27:41 +0900, Robert Klemme <bob.news / gmx.net> wrote:
> 
> > one important aspect i have neglected to emphasize is the nature of
> > flow-based (aka "agent") programming style in ruby.  see
> > http://www.jpaulmorrison.com/fbp/index.shtml
> 
> "Flow based" seems to me just another name for "event driven" from what I
> read so far.  It's a bit graph theory, a bit Petri Nets, a bit concurrency
> theory - not nearly as sensational as the author tries to make us think.

word on graph & concurrency theory, reading up on petri nets now
(wikipedia)...  (also reminds me to finish reading 'Linked' by ALB.)

perhaps there's something better for me to read up on event driven
programming besides [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EventDrivenProgramming],
but it sounds much earlier in the evolution of an idea.

> > # how can ruby utilize the 4 CPU cores for this massively parallel
> > bounded-buffer data-flow as a single unix process with only internal
> > threading?
> 
> So basically what you want is, that Ruby makes use of native threads.  I
> guess it would be much easier to implement a Ruby interpreter that uses
> native threads than to make a Mach microkernel server.  And it's more
> portable (i.e. POSIX threads).  This sounds a bit like the wrong hammer to
> your problem.  But then again, I'm not a microkernel expert.

maybe i'm nitpicking, but i feel a problem exists that processes, not
threads, are necessary.  when the parent process dies (perhaps because
of a bad thread), all of its threads go with it.  this is a problem
when one small error causes my entire application to crash.  (one
small error in one object in my web browser should not lose me all of
my "unsaved" rendered pages and URL information with it.  just that
one faulty object should die and get respawned.)  maintaining my human
productivity with persistent objects is more valuable than the
footprint of many processes.  O(1) schedulers make "too many
processes" a moot point in a cheap hardware world anyway, methinks.

> > one possible solution i thought of is to port the ruby interpreter as
> > a Mach microkernel server, sitting beside the bsd "personality"
> > server.  each object would be a Mach task while each function would be
> > a Mach thread, and objects would communicate via Mach inter-process
> > communication (IPC).  networking and filesystems can also be accessed
> > through Mach.
> 
> IMHO making each object a mach task would be overkill.  You probably meant
> each *component* (i.e. independent self contained processing unit as
> described by Paul Morrison) should be a mach task.

you do not think that paul's "components" essentially map directly to
ruby "objects"?

> Regards
> 
>     robert
> 
> 
> PS: Attached some sample of what I understand from "flow based".

word, i'll give it a serious look this weekend.

-z