Re: [Sbcl-devel] Threads on win32/64

[Brian M. <br...@ma...>]

On Sep 14, 2009, at 10:05 AM, Matthew Swank wrote:

> I read a post on Planet Lisp the other day basically pleading for  
> thread support
> on Windows. In general, watching development in this area has been  
> frustrating
> at best.
>
> There have been a couple of false starts, and the most recent  
> attempt to at
> least make it easier to support threads didn't make it into the  
> trunk (as far as
> I know) where it would be easier to keep it from rotting.
>
> SBCL users, I think it is fair to say, see it as an industrial  
> strength Lisp.
> However, at this point it might be the _only_ implementation that  
> runs on
> Windows that does not support at least experimental multi-threading.  
> Off the top
> of my head I came up with this list:
>
> CLisp (still experimental, but functional)
> ECL
> ABCL
> Clozure CL (also experimental, but functional)
> Lispworks
> ACL
> Corman Common Lisp
>
> Am I missing any?
>
> I know there are reasons that it has been hard to test code written  
> for this
> platform, but there should be some way to get there from here.


The best analogy here is Clozure CL, but even that has a commercial  
entity supporting development of the project. CLisp, ECL, and ABCL  
don't have the same implementation issues at all. If I remember  
correctly, both LispWorks and ACL only provide green threads. A green  
threads implementation for SBCL would be useful, but is a completely  
separate issue.

If you are frustrated by the situation, dive in and make it work, or  
find someone willing to sponsor the development. This stuff doesn't  
happen on its own. SBCL users might see it as an industrial strength  
implementation, but the truth is somewhere closer to woefully  
undermanned open source project.
--
Brian Mastenbrook
br...@ma...
http://brian.mastenbrook.net/