my view on "threads" in a tunes like system.

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

On Sun, Sep 17, 2000 at 11:14:33AM -0400, Alan Grimes wrote:
> In functional languages there is only one program in the computer, the rest
> are just functions waiting to be eval[uated]. So each CPU in the system
> simply executes a paralellized "eval" function. [...]
That's for "pure" (side-effect-free) languages,
not for higher-order languages, that may be impure.
Side-effects, communication, and other kinds of interaction
will make things more complicated.
They _can_ be encoded into pure languages with a monadic style
(see Haskell and Concurrent Haskell), but this doesn't reduce complexity,
although it can help to contain it.

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
[  TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System  | http://tunes.org  ]
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote
peace than our governments.  Indeed, I think that people want peace so much
that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them
have it.
                -- Dwight D. Eisenhower