>>>>> "Mo" == Mo DeJong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Mo> The startup stuff is kind of tricky because we need to support
Mo> two different kinds of loading. Tcl Blend can be loaded from
Mo> Tcl, whick will then load the JVM. Tcl Blend can also be
Mo> loaded from a JVM, this means Tcl Blend will also need to load
Mo> up Tcl.
I can see tclblend being loaded into tcl when you do something like
load tclblend into tclsh, but how do you end up with the reverse case?
Mo> In the case where Tcl Blend is loaded into Tcl, the
Mo> JavaGetEnv() method is called and this bit of code is
Mo> executed.
Mo> if (currentEnv != NULL) { return currentEnv; }
O.k. you only init these structures once. I see that, but what I
don't understand is what happens when another thread comes along and
uses the JNIEnv pointer stored in currentEnv. My understanding about
this is that for each thread the JNIEnv pointer is different. My work
on nsjava where I've integrated a jvm to work with aolserver's tcl
interpreters has shown me that this is true. Also the class, method,
etc., id's stored in the "java" structure need to be different for
each thread. I think I'm missing something here about the over-all
architecture of tclblend. Is there only one tcl interpreter thread in
tclblend or are there multiple tcl interpreters?
Mo> The tricky part is how Tcl is compiled. If Tcl is compiled
Mo> with threads support enabled, then you could use a Tcl mutex
Mo> to protect the resources. Problem is, some people might not
Mo> want to use the thread enabled version of Tcl. I am kind of
Mo> leaning towards requiring the thread enabled version of Tcl
Mo> for Tcl Blend because I think going for a simple solution and
Mo> avoiding using JNI when we can is a very good thing.
Just my opinion, but I would require that tcl be compiled with
threads. It seems that it would make things alot simpler. Of course
I'm biased, as aolserver will only ever use threaded interpreters :).
What is your current user base like? Do you think alot of people
have a need for a non-threaded interpreter? I know the threaded
version is probably slower, but I wonder if it is that significant.
Mo> We would certainly welcome any suggestions or insights you
Mo> might have on the subject. I hope that we can get all these
Mo> threading issues ironed out in the next 3-4 weeks so that we
Mo> can cut a 1.3.0 release of Jacl and Tcl Blend for people to
Mo> bang on.
As I get into this more, I might have something to offer. In nsjava,
I attach the jvm to the connection thread, so I have one tcl
interpreter per thread, I cache the JNIEnv pointer in a cache that is
indexed with the thread id. The only locking that I do is when I'm
accessing the cache to either put a new env pointer into it or to pull
an env pointer out. I've run this setup under high-load situations
using apache bench, and I'm not seeing any lock contention. Basically
I only support one new tcl command called ns_java which is roughly
equivalent to your java::call tcl commmand. I understand enough about
how aolserver works now, so I could probably extend this to give
nsjava functionality equivalent to tclblend, but I would rather see if
I can merge tclblend into nsjava. Providing aolserver with the
ability to script java components from tcl would be a very powerful
feature that I think many people would find useful for web based
development. I think it would be much better than accessing java
through jsp.
Dan
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