🚀 go-pugleaf

Sorry if this question has been asked before.


In view of a large scale European research programme, we are looking for
a (possibly PD) lightweight process (thread) package on UNIX. The idea
is to have a package which would allow us to run within a "traditional"
UNIX process a large number of lightweight processes. We are especially
looking for packages which are as environment-independent as possible,
and which would be reasonably easy to install on a new hardware/software
environment.

More specific requirements are:

   - The package should be usable from C (or should be a language
     extension of C);
   - the scheduler for lightweight processes should be preemptive;
   - it should be possible to start several hundreds
     of lightweight processes
   - there should be facilities to ensure that system calls,
     especially I/O, would not block the whole UNIX process; only
     the caller lightweight process should be internally suspended.


It is a real plus for us if:

   - The package should be usable from C++ as well (if not, we can
     always try to adapt it).
   - There is a mechanism which ensures that, from a programmer's point
     on view, there would be no difference between sending a message from
     one lightweight process to another within the same UNIX address space and
     between making a (hidden) RPC call to another object on another
     UNIX process.

We know that the terminology in this respect is not fully established and,
for some, lightweight packages and threads are different sort of animals.
No flames please.

We do have information and/or experience with AT&T's Concurrent C/C++,
Brown University's Thread Package and of Waterloo University uSystem and
uC++. We are looking however for more complete information.

We would prefer to receive answers by email, because I do not read all
the newsgroups addressed by this message. I am happy to post a overview
if anything of interest pops up. Thank you in advance.

Ivan Herman
             Centre for Mathematics & Computer Sciences (CWI),
             Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
             Email:ivan@cwi.nl, Tel: +31-20-592.4163