Problem in threading

[David Bolen]

"It's me" <itsme at yahoo.com> writes:

> It depends on what "help" means to you.   Both Windows and Unix (and it's
> variances) are considered "thread-weak" OSes.  So, using thread will come
> with some cost.   The long gone IBM OS/2 is a classic example of a
> "thread-strong" OS.
(...)

Interesting - can you clarify what you perceive as the differences
between a thread-weak and thread-strong OS?  If given the choice, I
would probably refer to Windows (at least NT based systems, let's
ignore 9x) as thread-strong, and yes, often think of Windows as
preferring thread based solutions, while Unix would often prefer
process based.

Windows is far more efficient at handling large numbers of threads
than it is processes, with much less overhead and there is lots of
flexibility in terms of managing threads and their resources.  Threads
are first class OS objects at the kernel and scheduler level (waitable
and manageable).

I can't think of anything offhand specific that OS/2 did with respect
to threads that isn't as well supported by current Win32 systems.

-- David