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Date:      Tue, 11 Dec 2001 02:49:02 -0800
From:      Bill Huey <billh@gnuppy.monkey.org>
To:        Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com>
Cc:        absinthe@pobox.com, Bill Huey <billh@gnuppy.monkey.org>, shanon loveridge <shanon_loveridge@yahoo.co.uk>, freebsd-java@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: jdk1.3.1p5
Message-ID:  <20011211104902.GA8293@gnuppy>
In-Reply-To: <15380.65513.794203.276229@caddis.yogotech.com>
References:  <20011210001702.10731.qmail@web14303.mail.yahoo.com> <20011210024138.GA3148@gnuppy> <20011209223635.A1152@absinthe> <15380.15272.167683.46148@caddis.yogotech.com> <20011210003200.C1152@absinthe> <15380.65513.794203.276229@caddis.yogotech.com>

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On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 11:33:13AM -0700, Nate Williams wrote:
> > My understanding is that native threads were not dependent on kernel
> > threads;  that is, native threads are there to, among other things,
> > reduce I/O overhead.  I understand as much to know that to go SMP inside
> > of the Java VM requires kernel threads.
> 
> Again, the internal green threads implementations uses the same tricks
> as do native threads to reduce I/O overhead.

With the current technical direction, yes, that's true. But when I think
of native threading I'm thinking about the entire platform that come with it,
proper JNI, HotSpot, etc... So it's a umbrella for all those facilities.

> > But again, the way I understand it is that by talking to a VM built
> > around pthreads, that some performance gains can be had.  So I guess
> > that (until SMPng becomes a reality) what I'm asking is whether a native
> > VM build exists around pthreads.
> 
> It's getting close, but as I stated above, for now it doesn't help much
> other than make it easier to port things such as HotSpot which use the
> PTHREADS API, unlike the JVM which allows you to use the older green
> threads technology.

But the thing here is that having it fully working in the first place
allows for some pipelining of work from various server side clients to be
upwardly workable with kernelized threading is functioning.

> Also, JDK1.4 no longer has the green threads support, so we must use
> the native threads API.

Which make native threading even more important to get it going now so
that bugs can be hammered out when a 1.4 attempt gets going so that it
hits the public in the quickest and most mature form possible.

The whole point in getting native threading going was to make the FreeBSD
JVM *big time* in spite of the failure to get a commercial venture
to back this (Sun, BSDi before I came along, etc...). Then this kind
"green threads is perfectly fine" juvenile attitude will properly die
and be replaced by a "Our JVM is better than yours. yes, really, *PLEASE
BITE ME*" and not this weak willed tone that folks are currently using
in the BSD community. Now suck that down. ;-)

Hehehe

bill


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