[erlang-questions] Shared memory and message passing

[ke han]

I think everyone can easily agree that Joe's position is  
correct...Smalltalk VMs have kept the "everything is an object" at  
the language level and optimized things at compile/runtime.
The big difference between using erlang and Smalltalk, for me, is  
that in Smalltalk I knew what these under-the-hood optimizations  
were...I knew how characters, integers, symbols, etc... were  
represented internally and this knowledge allowed me to write more  
efficient/scalable code.
I only know bits and pieces about how erlang does its "share nothing"  
but optimize internally magic...
This sort of info would make a great chapter in an upcoming book or  
series of online posts.  lists, tuples, large binaries, dictionaries,  
ets/dets...how do these things make efficient use of the underlying  
VM or how does the underlying VM/compiler optimize these structures  
and operations.

ke han

On Sep 5, 2006, at 5:06 PM, Joe Armstrong ((TN/EAB)) wrote:

>
> This kind of usage is, I guess OK, if it's hidden from the
> user as part of an language implementation, but it should
> definitely not be exposed to the application programmer.
>
> It's rather like garbage collection - or page table manipulation
> ok for a very small number of system programmers to use, but
> forbidden in regular applications
>
> /Joe
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Joel Reymont [mailto:joelr1@REDACTED]
>> Sent: den 5 september 2006 11:02
>> To: Joe Armstrong (TN/EAB)
>> Cc: erlang-questions@REDACTED
>> Subject: Shared memory and message passing
>>
>> Joe,
>>
>> What about using shared memory to optimize message passing
>> and avoid copying memory?
>>
>> This does not involve locks or critical sections, right?
>>
>> 	Thanks, Joel
>>
>> --
>> http://wagerlabs.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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