Re: [pgsql-www] NuSphere and PostgreSQL for windows

Tom Lane wrote:

>BTW, I've been wondering lately if we'd not be better off to look at
>using threading in the Windows port, if it'd help us get around the
>fork/exec data transfer problem. I'm not sure that it would, mind you,
>but if it would give an answer it might be a lot less painful than
>solving the data transfer problem directly.
>

I am sure you are correct. The whole Windows API is more multi-thread
friendly than multi-process friendly, and operates far more efficiently
that way, as I understand it. There is also some potential benefit on
some *nix systems, where thread creation is far less costly than
forking, or at least this used to be the case last time I looked at it.

>
>Our main objections to threading in the past have always been lack of
>portability and loss of robustness. Portability isn't an issue for a
>Windows-only solution, and I'm not too concerned about the other either,
>since I'll never think that Windows would be a place to run a production
>server anyway.
>
>
>
Not that I like Windows all that much, but using it for a server is
becoming more defensible as an option. As for portability, what *nix is
there these days that doesn't have some sort of lightweight thread support?

Maybe the relevant parts of the system need to be abstracted out and
threading generally made a build time option (on by default for Windows,
off by default otherwise, maybe?)

cheers

andrew