shared memory in Erlang

[Andrew Wallace]

David Gould wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 09:12:44PM +0100, Karel Van Oudheusden wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> >
> > Are there Erlang compilers that support shared memory between processes?
> >
> > I do not really understand how database applications or network
> > applications can be implemented in Erlang efficiently without some kind
> > of form of shared memory.  Only providing message passing does not seem
> > to be a good choice for these kind of applications.
> 
> Erlang has a very strong process and communication model. I wonder what
> shared memory support between processes would look like in Erlang? 

Karel might be talking about internal sharing memory between processes
which I find hard to picture in Erlang, ets tables maybe? 

We've also thought about implementing shared memory for communication
between Erlang and the rest of the world.  If the external (non-Erlang)
stuff wrote to the shared memory buffer and Erlang could read from it
when it needed the data. (Or it could go the other way around.)


> I mean,
> what would the language need in terms of syntax and semantics to support it?
> 

Nothing special, some understanding of normal data structures.  It
wouldn't have to  be too complicated.

Cheers, Andrew


> I am having trouble picturing it fitting in without a great deal of
> collateral damage...
> 
> Or do you mean, message passing implemented transparently by means of a
> shared memory?
> 
> > Comparing Java with Erlang, I must conclude that Erlang is my first
> > choice except for this very important memory issue!
> 
> But I certainly would not want to see Erlang become more like Java!
> 
> -dg
> 
> --
> David Gould                                                 dg@REDACTED
> SuSE, Inc.,  580 2cd St. #210,  Oakland, CA 94607          510.628.3380
> You left them alone in a room with a penguin?!  Mr Gates, your men are
> already dead.