5 ms·
Why Does Win32 Even Have Fibers?
- trezor 18y agoOk. So I'm a SQL Server DBA and I've heard about fibers before (with regard to SQL Server configuration), but not to any great extent as far as technical details go. A interesting read.
- a-priori 18y agoSo am I right that "fiber" is just the Microsoft word for "green thread"?
- pmorici 18y agoA more direct parallel is a posix thread with it's scope set to PTHREAD_SCOPE_PROCESS. Solaris has something called a "light weight process" which is also the same thing. A green thread is a thread running within a virtual machine. This article is also slightly inaccurate in saying that you CAN'T call API calls that block from a fiber. You can make the calls but it will block all of your fibers / process level threads which may not be what you want. "fiber" is just Microsoft's marketing term for threads scheduled at the process level.
- neilc 18y agoWell, "fiber" is just the API's name for a user thread. Calling it a "marketing term" seems unfair -- it is just a piece of technical jargon.
- pmorici 18y agoIf it's just an API term then why don't they just call it a "user thread"? Microsoft calls other wise standard things by different names to make people who don't know any better think that their skill only applys to Microsoft products. ie: Microsoft calls their implementation of a LDAP server "Active Directory" even though they are essentially the same thing. It's not a question of fairness it's a question of facts. You're the one reading it with a negative connotation that implies unfairness.
- neilc 18y agoIf it's just an API term then why don't they just call it a "user thread"? Because that might be confused with other user thread implementations? It is also significantly more awkward than "fiber". Microsoft calls their implementation of a LDAP server "Active Directory" even though they are essentially the same thing. Not really; AD does a lot more than just LDAP (e.g. Kerberos, DNS).