[erlang-questions] how much time required to pass messages.

[Davide Marquês]

Hi Vikrant! :)

Now next stuff I wonder, will the time required to pass message depends on
> what is being passed through message? guess is that it should. Because on
> process boundaries the data is copied.... copying will take time which will
> depend on the data itself.
>

I don't really know what happens while sending messages (cue for more
experienced folks ;)) but I remember recently reading (*checking mail...*)
here: http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2009-March/042714.html):

> Large heap binaries are always reference counted; this has nothing to
> do with the hybrid memory architecture. But it's only for binaries.
>
> What the hybrid system does is keep a separate, shared heap for all
> data that has been passed as messages. On the first send, the data is
> copied from the sender to the shared area, and from then on, it will
> be shared by all processes.
>
> So that might explain the message passing speed (on a single node).

Cheers,
Davide :)
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