I mean Java's Loom feels like the 'ultimate' example of the latter for the _ordinary_ programmer, in that it effectively leaves you just doing what looks like completely normal threads however you so please, and it all 'just works'.

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ysleepy 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Java has gone full circle.

Java had green threads in 1997, removed them in 2000 and brought them back properly now as virtual threads.

I'm kinda glad they've sat out the async mania, with virtual threads/goroutines, the async stuff just feels like lipstick on a pig. Debugging, stacktrackes etc. are just jumbled.

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iknowstuff an hour ago | parent | next [-]

In Rust debugging and stacktraces are perfectly fine because async/futures compile to a perfect state machine.

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gf000 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think comparing 97's green threads to virtual threads ever made sense.

Like their purpose/implementation everything is just so different, they don't share anything at all.

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delusional 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Java didn't really "sit it out". It launched CompletableFutures, CompletionStages, Sources and Sinks, arguably even streams. All of those are standard library forms of async programming. People tried to make it catch on, but the experience of using it, The runtime wrapping all your errors in completion exceptions, destroying your callstacks, just made it completely useless.

	▲	jen20 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Every Java codebase using something like Flux serves as a datapoint in favor of this argument - they're an abomination to read, reason about or (heaven help) debug.

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sqquima 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm curious how escape analysis works with virtual threads. With the asynchronous model, an object local to a function will be migrated to the old generation heap while the external call gets executed. With virtual threads I imagine the object remains in the virtual thread "stack", therefore reducing pressure in garbage collection.

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Rapzid 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The initial Loom didn't really provide the semantics and ergonomics of async/await which is why they immediately started working on structured concurrency.

And for my money I prefer async/await to the structured concurrency stuff..