Feedback about OpenComputers & Threads

[ummwut 0]

I started playing with this mod since it had been added to the Crack Pack modpack (which seems to have replaced ComputerCraft, probably to address balance issues).

 

Anyway, because OC uses Lua in much the same way CC does, it also seems to have the same limitations: parallelization. I'm aware that Lua itself limits how it implements threading (via cooperative subroutines) and in CC I always employed separate computer blocks, basically adding more processors, to address this issue.

 

Pseudo-parallelization has never been an issue when I implement purely event-driven code, but I was almost hoping that a true threading implementation would have made its way into this mod, since the signal API would not pose a limitation, and persistence heavily implies preemptive task managing. As far as I'm aware, Minecraft itself would have no issue launching more Java threads to handle some of the processing, and a thread limit per CPU (obviously tier-dependent) would be simple..

[Sangar 92]

Parallelizing a single Lua state is far from trivial. I'm not sure what you think you need "real" parallel computing, but you may want to have a look into servers, which are basically up to four computers in one block space.

[ummwut 0]

I'm sorry if I came off rude in my previous post.

 

Well, the server suggestion is a great one, I had completely forgotten about it. I guess I'll go dig up that threading API now.

 

The reason for parallelization is a simple one: It can yield a significant speed boost. Even something as simple as an editor with a GUI can be choppy without splitting up the tasks that it does.