[4133] in java-interest
Re: Thread suspend()/resume() and portability?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Strauss)
Mon Dec 11 23:08:26 1995
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 21:23:09 -0500 (EST)
To: java-interest@java.sun.com
From: dstrauss@panix.com (David Strauss)
In article <30CBCB3D.2691@cs.princeton.edu>, burchard@cs.princeton.edu says...
>
>Until recently I was using the suspend()/resume() methods
>of class Thread to put the auxiliary threads of my applets
>to sleep whenever the applet page was invisible (i.e.
>in Applet's start()/stop() methods).
>
>However, this does not appear to work correctly on Win95.
>Assuming stop() is called, either suspend() does not really
>suspend the thread, or the thread is somehow woken up. Has
>anyone knowledgeable about Win95 tested this in detail?
>
>A plea:
>
>Due to the centrality of threaded programming in Java,
>I think it's really important to document the intended
>thread/synchronization semantics at least as carefully as
>the language. Otherwise portability will suffer. There are
>many subtle differences in thread models; see for example
>an earlier discussion of VM-level threads archived at
>http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~burchard/www/interactive/javavm.mbox
>
I second this plea. I recently posted another observation about
Win95 thread scheduling that I had observed -- essentially that
lower priority threads get dynamically bumped up in priority so that they
can eventually steal a few cycles from a higher priority
threads, which means that, contrary to the behavior claimed
in the Java Programming Guide, threads cannot suffer starvation.
I got a few confirming replies to this post but none of them
were from the Sun Java folks. I know they're incredibly busy
and can't possibly answer all inquiries, but I get the impression
that Windows 95/NT support and portability is just not high up
enough on their list. And I fear that farming it out to
Microsoft is asking it to die.
David Strauss
dstrauss@panix.com
dstrauss@lehman.com
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