[Lazarus] Multi-threading support in IDE

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Thu, 13 Aug 2009, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> Marc Weustink wrote:
>> 
>> Don't know about the others, but compiling is done by a separate process, 
>> so there is a chance that your os runs it in a different core.
>
> That's not the same as running it in a separate thread though - is it?
>
> Quoted from a Posix Thread tutorial I found on the internet.
>  http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialPosixThreads.html
>
> "Threads require less overhead than "forking" or spawning a new process 
> because the system does not initialize a new system virtual memory space and 
> environment for the process."
>
>
> So wouldn't it be more efficient to create a new thread for the compiler 
> instead of a new process?

Efficient, yes; Desirable: absolutely not.

You cannot do that except by including the compiler in the IDE.
This opens up a whole other can of worms, finally resulting in a
less stable IDE.

As it is now, you can switch compilers on the fly; you can't do
that if the compiler is compiled-in in the IDE.

Michael.