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Re: A book for learning threads?

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On 11/03/12 19:46, Robert Miles wrote:
> On Friday, November 2, 2012 8:52:55 PM UTC-5, Ian Collins wrote:
>> On 10/30/12 19:49, Robert Miles wrote:
>>
>>> On Monday, October 29, 2012 11:35:14 AM UTC-5, Lucas Levrel wrote:
>>
>>>> If it already uses Pthreads and compiles on these platforms, where's the
>>>> worry? Just stick with the Pthread implementation of the threads concept.
>>
>> Please trim your lines and tidy up the mess google makes of your replies!
>
> Trying.
>
>>> There's no desire to have it run only on platforms that can run for a
>>> month or more without any interruptions.  Adding checkpoints so that it
>>> can resume with less computer time lost due to any interruptions REQUIRES
>>> understanding threads so that I can suspend all threads except the main
>>> thread when writing checkpoints or restoring from them.  I don't yet know
>>> if it also requires telling all the other threads to place information
>>> specific to those threads where the main thread can find it and include it
>>> in the checkpoint..
>>
>> Applications like BOINC typically dish out units of work to client
>> machines and these in turn pass them on to worker threads.  In this
>> case, it makes sense for the unit of work to be scaled to be a) useful
>> and b) small enough so not too much is wasted if the machine dies during
>> processing.
>>
>> Saving state part way through a work unit probably isn't worth while.
>>
>> Make your "checkpoints" the completion of a work unit.
>
> There's no good division of the process to allow the many of the workunits to
> be less than a month long, and sometimes longer.  If there was, checkpoints
> would already be available.

I still see this as a problem for the work unit rather than a threading 
one.  Surly it would be easier for the work unit to know when would be a 
good time to dump its state rather than rely on an application wide 
mechanism?  If the computations use multiple threads, each thread could 
save its own state.

-- 
Ian Collins

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Thread

A book for learning threads? Robert Miles <milesrf@Usenet-News.net> - 2012-10-28 19:26 -0500
  Re: A book for learning threads? Lucas Levrel <lucas.levrel@u-pec.fr> - 2012-10-29 09:45 +0100
    Re: A book for learning threads? Mark <i@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.invalid> - 2012-10-29 09:45 +0000
    Re: A book for learning threads? Robert Miles <robertmilesxyz@gmail.com> - 2012-10-29 07:42 -0700
      Re: A book for learning threads? Lucas Levrel <lucas.levrel@u-pec.fr> - 2012-10-29 17:35 +0100
        Re: A book for learning threads? Robert Miles <robertmilesxyz@gmail.com> - 2012-10-29 23:49 -0700
          Re: A book for learning threads? Lucas Levrel <lucas.levrel@u-pec.fr> - 2012-10-30 10:43 +0100
            Re: A book for learning threads? Robert Miles <robertmilesxyz@gmail.com> - 2012-10-30 07:27 -0700
          Re: Use of checkpoints for parallel data processing? Markus Elfring <Markus.Elfring@web.de> - 2012-11-01 13:31 +0100
            Re: Use of checkpoints for parallel data processing? Robert Miles <robertmilesxyz@gmail.com> - 2012-11-01 18:39 -0700
              Re: Use of checkpoints for parallel data processing? Markus Elfring <Markus.Elfring@web.de> - 2012-11-05 19:58 +0100
              Re: Use of checkpoints for parallel data processing? Markus Elfring <Markus.Elfring@web.de> - 2012-11-05 20:00 +0100
          Re: A book for learning threads? Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-11-01 17:55 +0000
          Re: A book for learning threads? Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-11-03 14:52 +1300
            Re: A book for learning threads? Robert Miles <robertmilesxyz@gmail.com> - 2012-11-02 23:46 -0700
              Re: A book for learning threads? Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-11-07 10:37 +1300
  Re: A book for learning threads? Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-10-29 12:52 +0000
    Re: A book for learning threads? Robert Miles <robertmilesxyz@gmail.com> - 2012-10-29 07:45 -0700

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