Re: [TCLCORE] 8.3.2 almost finished - expect an 8.3.3

[Andreas K. <a.k...@we...>]

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> FYI,
 
> 8.3.2 has some more testing to be done, and then some backporting of
> items that went into the main branch (8.4).  It should be out by
> mid-August.
 
> In working with 8.3.2, we realized that there will be a need for and
> 8.3.3 to work on limitations inherent in the Windows OS and how we
> manage sockets with Tcl.  Currently we can only service 64
> simultaneous socket requests because that's what the Windows select
> can manage per thread.

What an OS :(. Now there was that slip of paper ... Ah, here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Windows 95: n.
	32-bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to
	an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit
	microprocessor, written by a 2-bit company that can't stand
	for 1 bit of competition.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> The solution will be to spin a thread per socket instead (as
> lightweight as possible).

Questions coming to my mind:

	Would it be much more complex to spin new threads only as the
	limit on the previous ones is reached, i.e. only every 64
	sockets ?

	Or would that complexity outweigh the benefits we can get from
	having less threads around ?

	I'm worried that we will run into some limit on the number of
	threads supported by Win* instead.


> At the same time we have to solve the problem with the memory leak
> in using Windows threads when the C runtime is accessed (leading to
> things like the 4K mem leak per exec call on Windows).
 
> We already have some thoughts, but it will take some time to get the
> solution right.  We want to get the 8.3.2 changes out because it
> will be important for everybody to have a real distributed version
> of Tcl with the corrected stacked channel code, among other changes
> that will be in 8.3.2.  No release date for 8.3.3 at this time.

-- 
So long,
	Andreas Kupries <a.k...@we...>
			<http://www.purl.org/NET/akupries/>
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