On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:06:13 -0000, Kyle Simpson <get...@gmail.com> wrote:
In most mobile devices I've had the exposure to developing for, multi-threading is not possible/available to me. The usual answer, for instance for the iPhone, is that true multi-threading will tend to cause serious drains on limited battery life, which degrades quality of user-experience and user satisfaction. That's the only "anecdotal" evidence that I have for how these engines may not be completely free to multi-thread as is being suggested.
You're describing issues with background multitasking, which is a different thing.
iOS fully supports multi-threading in all applications (and did so in versions which didn't officially support multi-tasking), and Apple supports and keeps extending that functionality, e.g., added Grand Central Dispatch in iOS4, which gives iOS multi-threading & multi-core support on par with Mac OS X.
Single-threaded OSes, even on mobiles, are thing of the past. On platforms on which modern web apps are usable today, multi-threading is possible. With multi-core chipsets coming out, it might soon become a necessity!
You're also ignoring the fact that there are several other documented use-cases for execution-deferral that are not related to mobile (or multi-threading) at all. That maybe the 80% use-case for this proposal, but it's certainly not the only reason we want and need a feature like this.
Could you list those issues or point me where these issues are documented? -- regards, Kornel
