sends don't block, right?

[Chris Pressey]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:45:02 -0500
Shawn Pearce <spearce@REDACTED> wrote:

> Chris Pressey <cpressey@REDACTED> wrote:
> > On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:48:21 -0500
> > Shawn Pearce <spearce@REDACTED> wrote:
> > 
> > > Basically, I'm asking if Erlang will let the parent in this case
> > > run the VM out of memory before making the parent freeze.
> > 
> > Yes, exactly that.
> 
> Excellent, that's what I had thought, but its been a while since I
> had last read that fact and/or proved it to myself by reading that
> section of the emulator source code.
> 
> Not that I'd ever condone taking a node down like this.  But the fact
> that Erlang will grow the buffers as needed is what I'd expect.

I'd much, much, MUCH rather it just kill the receiving process or
(better) discard the message after a receive buffer limit is reached,
than taking down the entire node, though.

> Nah.  I'm not that worried about it.  It was easier to email the list
> and get a response from someone like yourself who knows Erlang better
> than I

Used it more in terms of sheer hours, perhaps; know it better, probably
not -- I'm still essentially mystified by OTP and erl_interface...

btw, I agree 100% (maybe 1000%) with Joe on the idea that hiding IPC
stuff inside wrapper functions is just plain *wrongheaded*.  Yes,
abstraction is good, but no, a function makes a *horrible* abstraction
for IPC -- especially in a "functional" language where functions aren't
supposed to have side-effects :)

-Chris