Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Which Books Can You Recommend For Learning Computer Programming? Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 10:08:33 -0700 Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 51 Message-ID: <87h9fmlgmm.fsf@garlic.com> References: <28e136de-6c61-4ba9-ba8f-e7c2b0bceff6@googlegroups.com> <20160329115042.8ddde578e74dae8ef7a36a11@eircom.net> <20160329134207.4d7d77389889326e422c0e55@eircom.net> <20160330065507.6eacbe72e757cd7cddedc07e@eircom.net> <87k2kji3d8.fsf@roadgrime.nodomain.nowhere> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="9a6c8ce24fcd2caeb84dd64e0fa6007c"; logging-data="4694"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX191qFoNM6jKRGlQOeBGpf0w0QUEg+Kq170=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.5 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:8xZOV6ip3PHl8RRTX4rXYP1qxm8= sha1:7ADC+kWTAuE2Y1NYJv9aXy+Clpg= Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:161730 Stephen Wolstenholme writes: > Multiprocessor mainframes where around when I was a computer engineer > in the 1970s. The number of processors didn't make any difference to > most programs. It was left up to the low levels of the operating > system to decide which thread ran on which processors. On Windows > SetThreadIdealProcessor is the key. I can't remember if UNIX has > anything similar . I've commented before about charlie invented compare&swap (chosen because CAS are his initials) while doing fine-grain multiprocessor locking working on CP67 at the science center. http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech and http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp then we attempted to get it added to 370 architecture. initially was rebuffed because the POK favorite son operating system people said that test&set was more than adequate for multiprocessor support (serializing critical code sections). The 370 architecture owners said that to get it justified would require additional uses, not just multiprocessor serialization. Thus was invented the multiprogramming/multithreading examples (used whether or not running on multiprocessor machine) that still are shown in the principles of operation. This was especially leveraged by large multithreading DBMS avoiding needing to make kernel calls for lots of serialization ... and by the 80s lots of other platforms (especially those supporting high-throughput DBMS) were including compare&swap (or instructions with similar semantics). Since then there has been quite a bit about holy grail in programming to provide paradigm easily supporting multiple concurrent operations ... instead of sequential, serial, step-by-step operation. Old posts repeating story of Gates ordering Intel to keep producing faster&faster single processor/core chips ... because multi-core software programming was too hard. Gelsinger tells Gates that it wasn't going to work that way: http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#78 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#2 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#42 Panic in Multicore Land http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#15 Why do people say "the soda loop is often depicted as a simple loop"? http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#44 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#90 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#28 I.B.M. Mainframe Evolves to Serve the Digital World http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#48 New HD http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#85 Parallel programming may not be so daunting http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#118 By the time we get to 'O' in OODA -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970