I like the idea. I implemented something similar recently and one of the real advantages is that you can kill (suspend, inspect, etc.) such a process. Fast spawning processes are very hard to debug (e.g. in the process browser). Max
On 24 Feb 2016, at 16:23, Ben Coman <btc@openInWorld.com> wrote:
Just sharing a passing thought so I don't forget it before I have time to think more deeply on it.
Several parts of Pharo (like SHTextStyler) are designed to have a background process running, and when new input arrives that process is killed so another can be immediately started - and sometimes we seem to end up with large amounts of zombie processes.
As I poke around Process>>terminate, I wonder if a different approach would be to have a Process>>restart. I see there is Context>>restart.
The starting the background process might look like...
stylingProcess := [ [ "do stuff with nextData". self suspend ] repeat ] forkAt: 30.
and the code in the main morphic priority 40 thread might look like...
sylingProcess suspend. nextData := 'blah'. sylingProcess restart.
anyway, back to the grind for me, cheers -ben