[e-lang] Multi-Core Processor Software

[Bill Frantz]

At our Friday meeting, Alan, Chip, Norm, and I discussed software
approaches to make use of multi-core processor architectures.  We noted
that Intel has announced that they will be delivering 80 cores on a chip
in 5 years.  One interesting observation we made is that if an E program
is written to use all or mostly eventual sends, it might be possible to
automatically break it into multiple vats, with the limit being one
object/vat.  (Alan noted that this process was probably NP, but that
since n would small, it still might be tractable.)

If we can actually achieve this for meaningful programs, then using 80
some-odd processing units to service the resulting vats might result in
significant multi-processor activity.  We think this might be a superior
approach to using these multi-core chips in the shared memory
concurrency (threads are evil) model that falls out of the definition of
Java, and has proven difficult to use in our experience.

Cheers - Bill

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz        | gets() remains as a monument | Periwinkle 
(408)356-8506      | to C's continuing support of | 16345 Englewood Ave
www.pwpconsult.com | buffer overruns.             | Los Gatos, CA 95032