[Ecls-list] Multiple ECL instances?

[Juan Jose Garcia Ripoll]

Michael O'Connor wrote:

>Another quick question I hope: does ECL support
>running multiple instances simultaneously?
>  
>
The "instances" that you mention, are probably analogous to "processes", 
aren't they? What you probably mean is creating different environments, 
with independent variable and function bindings, that cannot mess each 
other. This has not yet been implemented. But something close is already 
available.

>Other than this, there seems to be no reason that
>multiple ECL instances won't work. Am I right?
>  
>
The reason is that this concept is not really used in the CL world, and 
that it is too "expensive" to duplicate all packages, and all symbols, 
etc, etc. On the other hand, ECL's support for threads is partly based 
on having separate instances that share some common data (packages, 
symbols, etc) and have a private area (variable bindings, lisp stack, etc).

BTW, any help in improving the "threads" stuff is really really welcome.

Regards,

Juanjo