Is concurrency hard?

[Joe Armstrong (AL/EAB)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED
> [mailto:owner-erlang-questions@REDACTED]On Behalf Of 
> Marthin Laubscher
> Sent: den 6 november 2005 22:50
> To: erlang-questions@REDACTED
> Subject: RE: Is concurrency hard?
> 
   cut ...
  
> Maybe CSP's silent disfavour has something to do with what 
> became of its
> author - according to the usingCSP website, he's at Microsoft 
> Research.

"silent" yes - "disfavour" no

"silent admiration" would be more to the point.

In 

http://www.erlang.org/ml-archive/erlang-questions/200507/msg00172.html

I said "The CSP work is probably the best ever way describing systems"
hardly disfavour.

CSP is howether not a programming *language* - it's a notation.

And I'm not sure I'd like "executable CSP" as a programming language.

I mentioned some of the problems in

http://www.erlang.org/ml-archive/erlang-questions/200508/msg00340.html


Tony has a very nice lecture at

http://research.microsoft.com/~thoare/StructuredConcurrent%20programming_files/v3_document.htm

Where he extols the virtues of "concurrency without shared memory" - and some
programming language constructs that would map very nicely into Erlang.

Tony is also "silent about Erlang" - but I wouldn't ready either approval or disapproval into
his silence.

As for him being at Microsoft this can surely only be good - he might be able to
teach the guys at MS how to structure their code. He does, after all, say that:

"Concurrency is best regarded as a programming structuring principle" 

So if the MS guys heed his words the world's most popular OS might one day
improve.

<< Note: criticising MS's OS should in no way be thought of as endorsing 
other, less popular OS's, they are merely less bad ... >>

/Joe




> 
> Marthin Laubscher
> 
> 
> 
> 
>