[ Kernel thread being 'heavyweight' ]
> > It seems to me we're checking off a box on someone's list of features
> > w/out any regard to the usefulness of that feature. :(
>
> Yes, in the short term that's sort of true. Most of this is John Dyson's
> work, so I'll ask him to correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it's a
> case of learning to walk before learning to run. We all know about the
> work that John has been doing to the VM. This includes support for
> kernel threads. The simplest method of attack was to keep the kernel
> threads like processes so that the VM side of things could be proven
> to be stable. Then, with a stable VM, work could progress on pruning
> kernel threads down so that things like signal handling would only
> work at process level (like POSIX says), and not at individual thread
> level. It'll require changes to the way things are scheduled and processes
> forked.
Fair enough, but it seems that a stable VM would be tested just as well
with normal processes, so why the need for heavyweight 'threads'?
> In the long term, kernel threads will be more than just a
> check-in-a-box, IMHO.
Good enough. After using threads consistently for about 18 months, I
*like* them, but understand that if they become too heavy, most of the
advantages of using them go away.
Nate
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