Grand Central
In case anyone hasn't seen this, Apple have published a few more details about Grand Central: http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_TB_brief_20090608.pdf There is no API documentation yet, but it seems that it basically spawns a set of threads at different priorities and uses them to run blocks from various queues. Lots of hype, but it doesn't seem to give anything that we can't already do with EtoileThread and clang (we already have an implementation of blocks and an efficient way of passing objects between threads - see ETThread and MKObjectPipe). The most important improvement is hidden right at the bottom of the document; there is now a queue associated with the main thread, so there is a standard way of running arbitrary code at the end of the next run loop. David ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Grand Central
http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_TB_brief_20090608.pdf
Interesting - that ^{ syntax to describe a block is somewhat ugly, and it doesnt
give any deats of how you associate data with a block (which is necessary if
you want to get rid of locks).
It still all looks a bit heavyweight to me - I am still waiting for a
parallelism
model as easy to use as OCCAM ... people really threw the baby out with the
bathwater
there when the transputer died sadly :-(
There is no API documentation yet, but it seems that it basically
spawns a set of threads at different priorities and uses them to run
blocks from various queues. Lots of hype, but it doesn't seem to give
I can't work out if GCD is supposed to be an extension for OSX or an extension
to Objective-C itself. Obviously the block syntax requiures a language
extension,
but how do the bits fit together from there onward ?
-pete.
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Re: Grand Central
On Jun 14, 2009, at 14:53, Pete French wrote:
http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_TB_brief_20090608.pdf
Interesting - that ^{ syntax to describe a block is somewhat ugly,
and it doesnt
give any deats of how you associate data with a block (which is
necessary if
you want to get rid of locks).
There are two ways to pass data into blocks: constant copies from the
parent scope, and mutable access to block variables in the parent
scope (the latter makes blocks true closures). Here is a simple example:
typedef int (^IntIntBlock)(int);
IntIntBlock MakeExampleThing(int initial, int delta)
{
__block int accum = initial;
int (^block)(int) = ^(int i) { return accum += i + delta; };
return Block_copy(block);
}
In the block created above, accum is a block variable, and delta is a
const copy. If MakeExampleThing() is called twice, they get separate
copies of accum, so there's your data associated with the block. If
two blocks were created in the same function, both referring to accum,
they would share it.
int main(void)
{
int (^a)(int) = MakeExampleThing(5, 2);
int (^b)(int) = MakeExampleThing(1, 0);
printf(%i\n, a(3)); // prints 10
printf(%i\n, b(1)); // prints 2
Block_release(a);
Block_release(b);
return 0;
}
The block runtime is set up to allow blocks to be ObjC objects, so
that Block_copy() and Block_release() can be replaced with retain and
release messages. (Block_copy() is conceptually a retain operation,
although it actually does copy in the above example because the block
is initially created on the stack.)
In case the new syntax and manual memory management overhead gets in
the way in the above code, here's a Javascript equivalent:
function MakeExampleThing(initial, delta)
{
return function(i)
{
return initial += i + delta;
}
}
I can't work out if GCD is supposed to be an extension for OSX or an
extension
to Objective-C itself. Obviously the block syntax requiures a
language extension,
but how do the bits fit together from there onward ?
Other than blocks, as far as I can see (I don't have Snow Leopard
seeds) it's just a library and an optimized thread scheduler.
--
Jens Ayton
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Getting reviews and submitting patches
Sorry for the newbie question, but I want to make sure I get it right ;-) I've got a couple of patches that I'd like to submit to gnustep-base. Google has signed off on having them submitted to the project, so the legal steps are taken care of already. a) Is there a coding standard for gnustep somewhere that I missed? Right now I'm guessing no. b) How do people normally handle reviews? c) Anything else I should know before diving into the world of submitting patches? Cheers (and thanks), Dave ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Getting reviews and submitting patches
On 14 Jun 2009, at 17:20, Dave MacLachlan wrote: Sorry for the newbie question, but I want to make sure I get it right ;-) I've got a couple of patches that I'd like to submit to gnustep- base. Google has signed off on having them submitted to the project, so the legal steps are taken care of already. Have you filed a copyright assignment form with the FSF? As a GNU project, contributors to GNUstep are required to do this. The FSF still owes me $1 from mine though... a) Is there a coding standard for gnustep somewhere that I missed? Right now I'm guessing no. GNUstep is a GNU project, so the GNU coding styles apply. These are widely ignored in GNUstep, however, because they are absolutely atrocious (worse than Google's, but not quite as bad as LLVM's). They were originally created as a 'compromise' between the BSD and ATT coding conventions, and managed to combine the worst aspects of both. b) How do people normally handle reviews? Post patches to the list, and if no one reviews / commits them, complain until they do (well, that's how I do it...). As far as I know, there is no formal code review system (yet...). c) Anything else I should know before diving into the world of submitting patches? Nothing springs to mind. The first step is doing the copyright assignment. David ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: NSCalendar and NSLocale support
Am 14.06.2009 um 23:10 schrieb Riccardo Mottola: Hi, Dave MacLachlan wrote: Hey there... I'm looking to add NSCalendar and NSLocale to Foundation. I'm happy to implement them, but I was hoping to do it on top of ICU (http://site.icu-project.org/). Are we willing to add a dependency on ICU to gnustep? This is a typical dilemma. Usually I am a friend of having the smallest set of dependencies possible. I checked and ICU is for example readily available in gentoo (if not, I would have really worried) but it is not for example available on sunfreeware, this tells me that it is not that widespread. Really? SUN should use it: from http://site.icu-project.org/: Companies and Organizations using ICU ABAS Software, Adobe, Apple, Amdocs, Apache Xalan XSLT, Apache Xerces XML, Argonne National Laboratory, Avaya, BAE Systems Geospatial eXploitation Products, BEA, BroadJump, BluePhoenix Solutions, BMC Software, Boost, Business Objects, caris, CERN, Debian Linux, Dell, Eclipse, eBay, EMC Corporation, ESRI, Free BSD, Gentoo Linux, Google, GroundWork Open Source, GTK+, HP, Hyperion, IBM, Inktomi, Innodata Isogen, Informatica, Intel, Interlogics, IONA, IXOS, Jikes, Mathworks, Mozilla, Netezza, OpenOffice, Lawson Software, Leica Geosystems GIS Mapping LLC, Mandrake Linux, OCLC, Progress Software, Python, QNX, Rogue Wave, SAP, SIL, SPSS, Software AG, Sun Microsystems (Solaris, Java), SuSE, Sybase, Symantec, Teradata (NCR), Trend Micro, Virage, webMethods, Wine, WMS Gaming, XyEnterprise, Yahoo!, and many others. Products from IBM Ascential Software, Cognos, PSD Print Architecture, DB2, COBOL, Host Access Client, InfoPrint Manager, Informix GLS, iSeries, Language Analysis Systems, Lotus Notes, Lotus Extended Search, Lotus Workplace, WebSphere Message Broker, NUMA-Q, OTI, OmniFind, Pervasive Computing WECMS, Rational Business Developer and Rational Application Developer, SSS Websphere Banking Solutions, Tivoli Presentation Services, Tivoli Identity Manager, WBI Adapter/ Connect/Modeler and Monitor/ Solution Technology Development/WBI-Financial TePI, Websphere Application Server/ Studio Workload Simulator/Transcoding Publisher, XML Parser. Products from Google Web Search, Chrome, Android, Adwords, Google Finance, Google Maps, Blogger, Google Analytics, Google Gears, Google Groups, and others. Products from Apple Mac OS X, iPhone OS, Safari for Windows, Apple Mobile Device Support in iTunes for Windows. ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
