Re^2: Alternatives to threads for maintaining GUI app responsiveness

I dont know if you saw this line in my OP:

mst mentioned these as viable alternatives to threads. However, I could not persuade him to compare/contrast threads with these solutions for pros/cons.

The mantra of every experienced web application developer is the same: thou shalt separate business logic from display. Ironically, almost all template engines allow violation of this separation principle, which is the very impetus for HTML template engine development.

-- Terence Parr, "Enforcing Strict Model View Separation in Template Engines"

Comment on Re^2: Alternatives to threads for maintaining GUI app responsiveness

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Re^3: Alternatives to threads for maintaining GUI app responsiveness by zentara (Cardinal) on Sep 30, 2011 at 17:25 UTC
Yeah sorry, I was temporarily stunned by the big lettering. :-) The answer is that you can't make 1 simple recipe that is best for all applications, even though everyone wants that silver bullet type of code. Its easy on the brain to have boilerplate code that is general purpose... you don't have to think as much. Sometimes forking is better, sometimes threads, sometimes just an event-loop is best. My rule of thumb is that if your app needs REALTIME communication between separate worker subs, use threads. If one worker dosn't care about what the other is doing, use a fork. Threads should be avoided when they are required to load big data sets, as the memory used will not be freed by the Perl process.... forking off memory hungry workers is best, as the OS will reclaim that memory when the forked process dies. Those are general guidlines. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Old Perl Programmer Haiku ................... flash japh	[reply]

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Re^3: Alternatives to threads for maintaining GUI app responsiveness
by zentara (Cardinal) on Sep 30, 2011 at 17:25 UTC

Sometimes forking is better, sometimes threads, sometimes just an event-loop is best. My rule of thumb is that if your app needs REALTIME communication between separate worker subs, use threads. If one worker dosn't care about what the other is doing, use a fork. Threads should be avoided when they are required to load big data sets, as the memory used will not be freed by the Perl process.... forking off memory hungry workers is best, as the OS will reclaim that memory when the forked process dies.

Those are general guidlines.

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth.
Old Perl Programmer Haiku ................... flash japh

[reply]