Re: lines of code?

From: Chris Smith (cdsmith_at_twu.net)
Date: 12/13/03 

Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 09:10:33 -0700

goose wrote:
> a few points to consider from the above post:
> a) I should have qualified my statement about multiple
> threads not actually buying you anything ("multiple
> threads dont *always* get you anything more than
> single-threaded", for example).

If that were what you'd said, I'd fully agree.

> b) Micheal never pointed out that there were legitimate
> reasons for using threads. his subsequent posts made it
> very clear that his use of multiple threads was in the
> context of java gui; I'm no java expert, but I am under
> the impression that java is kinda useless if you cannot
> have more than one thread; select() functionality has
> only recently (2 years?) been added to java, no ?

It is correct that Java's APIs and language are designed around the
decision that threads are fundamental, so you're right in that respect.
On the other hand, outside of a GUI application, it's entirely possible
to write single-threaded Java applications today, even if they do I/O.
The fact that it wasn't possible prior to the release of 1.4 several
years ago is not very relevant these days.

The requirement for use of threads in a GUI environment mostly comes
from Java's lacking a way to "poll" for events and process them from
within a programmatic loop elsewhere in code. That polling method, so
well-known in VB, is clearly a broken idea in the first place. I would
not want to see a GUI application written as a single thread (though
such applications get written all the time in Microsoft VB environments,
and they generally prove how destructive the idea really is).

In the end, though, I don't personally think this question of
multithreading being "required" in Java is relevant, anyway. After all,
even if multithreading is forced in a few situations, there are still
important decisions to be made as to where specific tasks should be
solved using multithreading and where they should be solved using other
techniques.

> c) In order for you (or Micheal) to justify the "this is
> nonsense" response to my "does not buy you anything",
> you would have to show that all multi-threaded design
> is superior to single-threaded

I think to most people's understanding of English, that's clearly not
the case. For example, if I said it was nonsense to say that cars don't
do any good, I would not have to prove that I should drive a car to my
mailbox in the morning (or even to work, or to the grocery store) to
justify that statement.

Clearly, you have an aversion to multithreading, and I have an aversion
to unnecessarily implementing something as a state machine. My aversion
to use of state machines all over the place is that they throw away the
advantages of high-level languages; a loop no longer looks like a loop,
but rather like a set of state transitions, which you might recognize as
a loop only if you have or bother to draw a state transition diagram.
Apparently, your aversion to threads comes from the potential for
deadlocks and race conditions. I can only say that I prefer one
disadvantage over the other, because at least when reading a
multithreaded application, I can see what's going on. 

-- 
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way to Train Anyone... Anywhere.
Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation

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