Wolfgang Thaller wrote:
[...] I propose adding something like
forkNativeThread :: IO () -> IO ()
which forks a new Haskell thread that has its own OS thread to execute in. Note that the fact that only one Haskell thread may execute at a time remains unchanged. [...]
I haven't thought very deeply about your proposal yet, but I don't understand the remark above: What about e.g. a multi-processor Solaris machine (where pthreads work as intended, not the rather poor stuff currently shipped with Linux)? In such an environment there are often multiple processors executing different threads (or LWPs, or whatever you call it) of the same process simultaneously. Perhaps I misunderstood something here... :-} Nevertheless, you make a good point: Better support for "real" multi-threading is definitely an area where I'd like to see some improvement for the next non-patchlevel release of GHC. I'm still unconvinced that the current optional RTS support for mixed green/native threads is the right way to go. It looks to me like a workaround for poor OS support for really lightweight threads. Cheers, S.