Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!homxb!hropus!ki4pv!codas!usfvax2!pdn!ard
From: ard@pdn.UUCP (Akash Deshpande )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Parallel processes in smalltalk
Keywords: Smalltalk, parallel processes
Message-ID: <2100@pdn.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jan 88 18:38:13 GMT
Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida
Lines: 30


	How could one elegantly monitor the progress of parallel processes
	spawned in a smalltalk application? This could be necessary while
	developing an application, when it is useful to have the full smalltalk
	development environment around. If the processes are forked at
	userinterface priority (with appropriate yields) then one can hardly
	get any mouse activity in edgeways. If the processes are forked at
	a higher priority, then one has to introduce suspensions (through
	Delay ... wait) which could spoil the co-ordinations. If the processes
	are forked at a lower priority than userinterface priority, then they
	don't run.

	Possibly, the yield function could be modified slightly to cause
	minor suspensions of the receivers. Ideally, such details should not
	be addressed by the programmer but managed by the system itself.
	This can be done if multiple instances of Processor can be created
	(with some internal mapping to the physical processor). Of course,
	the development can be brute-forced by writing debugging messages 
	to some structures and later reading them, etc.

	Comments and discussion appreciated.

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Akash Deshpande				
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