[webkit-dev] Parallel JavaScript: Why a separate ParallelArray types

[Joe Mason]

> From: webkit-dev-bounces at lists.webkit.org [webkit-dev-bounces at lists.webkit.org] on behalf of Maciej Stachowiak [mjs at apple.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 10:05 PM
> To: Filip Pizlo
> Cc: Benjamin Poulain; webkit-dev at lists.webkit.org; dpranke at chromium.org
> Subject: Re: [webkit-dev] Parallel JavaScript: Why a separate ParallelArray types
>
> These languages are popular, but I believe most complex projects using them with threading a long tail of nasty 
> but hard-to-diagnose threadsafety bugs.

Indeed, my assumption was always that languages with special-purpose concurrency constructs were not popular for the same reason all special-purpose languages are not popular compared to C++: they're not C++. It's hard to get over the hump of competing with C++, and a new concurrency paradigm isn't enough to do it even if that paradigm is better than shared memory+mutexes. The lack of success isn't evidence that the concurrency construct is worthless, just that lacks whatever spark (which is often marketing and not technical superiority) that causes some languages to succeed and others to fail.

Joe






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