Thanks for your answer Jerome. The introductory paper was what triggered the question in my mind -- I guess I need to read "Java Concurrency in Practice". Cheers Jaime
On Feb 5, 2008 3:38 AM, Jerome Louvel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Jaime, > > > Since the "Restlet vs Servlet" topic was touched, please let me > > include a related concern that I'm sure n00bs like me will share > > > > Jerome, in that FAQ you mention (this one I assume > > http://www.restlet.org/about/faq), in question #3 it says: > > > > "Finally, the Restlet API is I/O agnostic as its core Representation > > interface can work equally well with BIO streams (java.io package) and > > NIO channels (java.nio package)." > > Yes, I wrote that :-) > > > Now, are you saying there that there is something conceptual that > > prevents Servlets to use NIO? (apart from possible implementation > > details in particular servers like Tomcat) > > If that's true, then how should we interpret statements like "Jetty > > can use NIO" or "Glassfish can use NIO" ? > > The Servlet API directly exposes the request inputstream and the response > outputstream for consumption and writing by the Servlet developer. This > means that it would be quite difficult for the API to cleanly allow the > developer to have the choice to work with NIO channels instead, at least > without breaking the backward compatibility. > > Now that doesn't mean that Servlet containers can't leverage NIO to improve > their performance (scalability and throughput). They can indeed use the > non-blocking IO at the socket level, request parsing and response > formatting. This way, the number of concurrent connections can be decoupled > from the number of processing threads. > > However, they can't leverage NIO from the socket to the Servlet as the > Servlet API has no provision for NIO as explained above. This is where the > Restlet API makes the difference, by introducing the Representation class > based on the idea of contentlets suggested by Greg Wilkins (Jetty). > > BTW, you can read more context info in the introduction paper: > http://www.restlet.org/about/introduction > > > Please notice that I don't intend to start a confrontation of the "I > > say they say" kind, only looking for enlihgtment > > Thanks for keeping the discussion constructive. There is in fact no need for > confrontation: we leverage the Servlet API in our adapter extension and > Jetty as a standalone connector. > > Best regards, > Jerome > >
