Talk:Multithreading (computer architecture)

Anno UK83.67.105.130 11:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC) i think that this should be merged as it would provide greater laerning potential as one document for cross refencing pourposes

MAMF: I see no point in combining the general and specific articles related to multi-threading. Having browsed most of the links I feel the current setup is better. A general high-level discussion article, with links for more depth when desired (and back should you start in an article with more detail than you want) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.160.178.134 (talk) 12:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree indeed, but then this page needs to be revamped, as it was originally intended to only cover the Hardware multithreading, thus the previous name before the renaming. As of now, if somebody looks for software multithreading information, he will get very confused by what the page says which is specific to hardware multithreading. I'd suggest to move the detailed hardware material to a separate page, and link to there from here. Samuel Thibault Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:47:17 +0200

"Execution times of a single-thread are not improved but can be degraded." I strongly doubt of this. If there is really only one thread, then it can use the whole computing power and caches for itself. When running two threads that do not share data, that's another story of course Samuel Thibault 16:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

That's the point the sentence is trying to make. Dyl (talk) 07:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Then I'll clarify the sentence, because that's not what I understood from it. Samuel Thibault 13:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamuelThibault (talk • contribs)

Errr, no, looking at the list again, running two threads is the point of the previous item in the list: "Multiple threads can interfere with each other when sharing hardware resources such as caches or translation lookaside buffers (TLBs).", here "multiple threads" does not necessarily mean "multiple threads of the same process". —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamuelThibault (talk • contribs) 13:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Mmm, I'm tempted to drop the reference to multithreaded cryptography. If we let that one in, then I'm afraid we'll get a big bunch of "multithreaded this" and "multithreaded that", as multithreading is potentially applied to any algorithm... Samuel Thibault 16:41, 22 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Multithreading vs SMT?

Can somebody explain the differences between this article and Simultaneous Multithreading? As these two articles are written now, it looks that overlap is huge, and it is tempting to merge this article into SMT (which is much more specific and universally recognizable term than 'Multithreading'). Ipsign (talk) 05:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

As this article is trying to explain, SMT is a sub-type of MT. As such, this article covers other types of MT. There are also errors in the Simultaneous multithreading article. I don't agree that SMT is a more widely recognized term. If anything, the Intel Marketing trademark 'Hyperthreading' is more widely recognized. Dyl (talk) 03:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Hyperthreading is (arguably) one of SMT implementations, so I would argue they should belong to the same article (I dont care if it is named SMT or Hyperthreading). And when somebody searches for 'multithreading', I don't think they expect to see this article (more likely, it is about multithreading in software, which is currently under Thread (computer science)). In addition, most of material in current Multithreading article is completely unsourced. I will be arguing complete rewrite and/or merge on these grounds. Ipsign (talk) 14:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

You want to merge multithreading because it is completely unsourced? Where's the policy that mandates such action? Also, where would you merge this article too? Rilak (talk) 06:59, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite

I've found a pretty authoritative journal article on the subject, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96.9105&rep=rep1&type=pdf , and feel that Multithreading should be rewritten based on its findings (other sources are obviously also welcome). Is there anybody willing to do it (I might do it myself, but it will probably take quite a while)? Ipsign (talk) 09:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed renaming

As Multithreading word is clearly used in at least two different senses, I propose to:

• rename Multithreading into Explicit multithreading in processors
• create Multithreading page as disambiguation page, having links both to Explicit multithreading in processors and to Thread (computer science).

If nobody objects to this proposal in a few weeks, I'm planning to go ahead with it. Ipsign (talk) 09:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that there is a need for multithreading to be a disambiguation page, and I am not sure how you concluded that disambiguation is needed. I notice that there is a hatnote that mentions threads, but I cannot see how you can confuse a thread with multithreading. Its like confusing instruction with superscalar. Rilak (talk) 06:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, disregard the above comment, I just remembered that the term multithreading is used in in the context of software. What I object to is the proposed title. I think it makes it a bit difficult to determine quickly that it is about multithreading as "multithreading" is not at the front. I propose that "Multithreading (computer architecture)" be used instead. I considered "Multithreading (computer hardware)", but I think it is not appropriate as it implies that the article is about physical realizations of multithreading and not the technique and theory. Rilak (talk) 07:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you clarify what is your exact proposal? There are several pages involved, and it is necessary to understand proposals completely before commenting on them. My point is the following: when somebody looks for "Multithreading", we cannot tell what s/he's looking for (current Multithreading page on CPU multithreading, or Thread (computer science)); therefore, per WP:PT there should be a disambiguation page for Multithreading, which is what I've proposed. Ipsign (talk) 09:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)