threads are so dang awesome

a.rb

=begin

  READ THIS FOR CONTEXT:

    http://tenderlovemaking.com/2012/07/30/is-it-live.html

=end 


strategy =
  String(ARGV.shift || 'thread') 

n =
  Integer(ARGV.shift || 4)

mb =
  2 ** 20

a = b =
  nil

size =
  0


case strategy

  when /THREAD/i

    threads = []
    q = Queue.new

    a = Time.now.to_f

    n.times do
      threads << Thread.new do
        Leak!(mb)
        q.push Thread.current.object_id
        sleep
      end
    end

    n.times do
      q.pop
    end

    b = Time.now.to_f

    size = Process.rsize


  when /FORK/i

    pids = []

    a = Time.now.to_f

    n.times do
      r, w = IO.pipe

      if pid = fork
        pids << pid
        w.close
        _size = Integer(r.read.strip)
        size += _size
      else
        r.close
        Leak!(mb)
        w.puts(Process.rsize)
        w.close
        sleep
      end
    end

    b = Time.now.to_f

    size += Process.rsize

end

y(
  :n       => (n),
  :elapsed => (b - a),
  :size    => ('%2.2fmb' % (size / mb.to_f))
)


BEGIN {

  require 'thread'
  require 'yaml'

  def y o
    puts o.to_yaml
  end

  def Leak! n
    Array.new(n){|i| i * rand} 
  end

  module Process
    def self.size pid = Process.pid 
      stdout = `ps wwwux -p #{ pid }`.split(%r/\n/)
      vsize, rsize = stdout.last.split(%r/\s+/)[4,2].map{|i| i.to_i * 1024}
    end

    def self.vsize
      size.first
    end

    def self.rsize
      size.last
    end
  end

}


__END__


  cfp:~ $ ruby --version
  ruby 1.9.3p194 (2012-04-20 revision 35410) [x86_64-darwin11.4.0]

  cfp:~ $ ruby a.rb thread 4
  ---
  :n: 4
  :elapsed: 2.40175199508667
  :size: 250.02mb

  cfp:~ $ ruby a.rb fork 4
  ---
  :n: 4
  :elapsed: 1.227113962173462
  :size: 246.90mb




  cfp:~ $ ruby --version
  jruby 1.6.7.2 (ruby-1.8.7-p357) (2012-05-01 26e08ba) (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 1.6.0_33) [darwin-x86_64-java]


  cfp:~ $ ruby a.rb thread 4
  --- 
  :n: 4
  :elapsed: 13.164999961853
  :size: 186.55mb

context.md

http://tenderlovemaking.com/2012/07/30/is-it-live.html

your apples-to-apples comparison is appreciated and interesting -- but I still think the main issue is memory sharing amongst processes vs amongst threads, and i haven't seen anything elsewhere that would suggest that CoW is anywhere near as effective at sharing memory as threads are.

That said i don't have any numbers myself regarding per-request and/or per-thread memory usage, so I should come up with a demonstration for that before pushing this further.

wow! https://gist.github.com/3397719

support for leveraging the OS - not replacing it. now if only macruby ran on linux ;-)