Talk:Thread (computing)

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Untitled

Thanks for fleshing out the stub, Lee. I knew this stuff, but it wasn't on the tip of my tongue (one step further buried in the memory banks). User:Ed Poor

Renaming

Just for note. I renamed the article to thread (computer science) because threading not necessarily only in software enginnering. -- Taku 16:14, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

System call for a context switch?

The article says "Typically fibers are implemented entirely in userspace. As a result, context switching between fibers in a process is extremely efficient: because the kernel is oblivious to the existence of fibers, a context switch does not require a system call." Why would a context switch require a system call in any situation? Is it talking about non-preemptive multitasking? If so, wouldn't it be better if the article mentioned it? If the article isn't intended to say that a system call is required for a context switch, then it would be better if it were cleared up in the article. It's misleading. It would help if the article (that section) is clearer anyway.

Yeah, it would be more clear to say "a context switch does not require a kernel entry" or some such. I'm not sure that it matters whether or not the thread implementation is preemptively scheduled or not: in a cooperatively scheduled implementation of kernel threads, there is still some kernel state associated with the currently-running thread, and so a kernel entry is some kind is required to switch that state, right? The point is somewhat academic, anyway, as cooperatively-scheduled kernel thread implementations are rare AFAIK. Neilc 04:23, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I made that change. I was trying to figure out how to get something about pre-emptive scheduling of threads involving the kernel programming a hardware interrupt in order to stop the current thread, but couldn't figure out how to word that decently. :) Dianne Hackborn 05:51, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Books

I've added Three .NET threading resources - two of these are admittedly my own published works. I've added them only because there were no other .NET programming resources listed. Feel free to remove them if you feel they are inappropriate. Both of these books are out of print but you can still find them quite often at book stores and from secondary book stores. I have a fourth book published that is still on the market that I didn't list because it covers two other areas as well as threading. The title is Pro .Net 1. 1 Remoting, Reflection, and Threading and the ISBN is 1-590-59452-5. While it is more "current", the fact that it covers two other topics doesn't seem to make it appropriate for this article. Once again, feel free to add it if you feel otherwise. - Sleepnomore 15:46, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

The process with threads image

The potentially leads to misinterpretations.

As it is, unwary readers may think processes are always made up of threads, which is not true. Actually, in many contexts, threads break processes into tasks.

I propose the image, as it is now, to be removed. M. B., Jr. (talk) 23:58, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

And in the context of the Mach kernel, a task has multiple threads - and a task corresponds somewhat to a process; Darwin's XNU kernel constructs each UN*X process atop a Mach task (and Darwin's pthread library constructs pthreads atop Mach threads).

So what are your defintions of process, thread, and task here? Guy Harris (talk) 01:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, Guy Harris. I'm glad we agree, since I did not state the opposite whatsoever. As for definitions, I'm not sure what you mean by "your". This is an article about the concept, not about particular implementations. In Modern Operating Systems, Tanenbaum writes that "several different models are possible". Notwithstanding, implementations may be provided in a proper context-wise manner, e.g., precisely explaining the case in the image's subtitle. This way, readers are able to understand the Mach way is not a general rule. Regards, M. B., Jr. (talk) 20:14, 19 December 2022 (UTC)