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Subject: Re: yield API
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 07:50:39 -0400
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0710020733270.16314@chaos.analogic.com>
In-Reply-To: <20071002064620.GA26638@elte.hu>
Thread-Topic: yield API
Thread-Index: AcgE6n0kM04N9JDBTjCSfV9KV5pL+Q==
References: <20071001173159.GB2492@elte.hu> <MDEHLPKNGKAHNMBLJOLKOEOBHCAC.davids@webmaster.com> <20071002064620.GA26638@elte.hu>
From: "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com>
To: "Ingo Molnar" <mingo@elte.hu>
Cc: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>, <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Reply-To: "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com>
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
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On Tue, 2 Oct 2007, Ingo Molnar wrote:

>
> * David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> wrote:
>
>>> These are generic statements, but i'm _really_ interested in the
>>> specifics. Real, specific code that i can look at. The typical Linux
>>> distro consists of in execess of 500 millions of lines of code, in
>>> tens of thousands of apps, so there really must be some good, valid
>>> and "right" use of sched_yield() somewhere in there, in some
>>> mainstream app, right? (because, as you might have guessed it, in
>>> the past decade of sched_yield() existence i _have_ seen my share of
>>> sched_yield() utilizing user-space code, and at the moment i'm not
>>> really impressed by those examples.)
>>
>> Maybe, maybe not. Even if so, it would be very difficult to find.
>> Simply grepping for sched_yield is not going to help because
>> determining whether a given use of sched_yield is smart is not going
>> to be easy.
>
> sched_yield() has been around for a decade (about three times longer
> than futexes were around), so if it's useful, it sure should have grown
> some 'crown jewel' app that uses it and shows off its advantages,
> compared to other locking approaches, right?
>
> For example, if you asked me whether pipes are the best thing for
> certain apps, i could immediately show you tons of examples where they
> are. Same for sockets. Or RT priorities. Or nice levels. Or futexes. Or
> just about any other core kernel concept or API. Your notion that
> showing a good example of an API would be "difficult" because it's hard
> to determine "smart" use is not tenable i believe and does not
> adequately refute my pretty plain-meaning "it does not exist" assertion.
>
> If then this is one more supporting proof for the fundamental weakness
> of the sched_yield() API. Rarely are we able to so universally condemn
> an API: real-life is usually more varied and even for theoretically
> poorly defined APIs _some_ sort of legitimate use does grow up.
>
> APIs that are not in any real, meaningful use, despite a decade of
> presence are not really interesting to me personally. (especially in
> this case where we know exactly _why_ the API is used so rarely.) Sure
> we'll continue to support it in the best possible way, with the usual
> kernel maintainance policy: without hurting other, more commonly used
> APIs. That was the principle we followed in previous schedulers too. And
> if anyone has a patch to make sched_yield() better than it is today, i'm
> of course interested in it.
>
> 	Ingo

But sched_yield() on Linux never did what the majority of
programmers assumed it would do (give up the CPU to some
runnable processes for the rest of the time-slice). Instead,
it just appeared to spin in the kernel. Therefore, those
who needed a sched_yield(), just used usleep().

Whether or not there is a POSIX definition of sched_yield(),
there is a need for something that will give up the CPU
and not busy-wait. There are many control applications
where state-machines are kept in user-mode code. The code
waits for an event. It shouldn't be spinning, wasting
CPU time, when the kernel can be doing file and network
I/O with the wasted CPU cycles.

So, just because sched_yield() doesn't work as expected,
is not the reason to get rid of it.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.59 BogoMips).
My book : http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/
_


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