Damien Neil wrote: > I'm not familiar with "predictive seeks", > can you give a quick explanation?
It's very much like predictive loading of the instruction cache in a cpu. It makes a heuristic guess that since you just read 1000 bytes in order, you're probably going to want to read the next 1000 bytes in order, so it reads them in even before you ask for them. This can be extended to seeks in general. However, "prediction" is usually too strong a term. It's usually just pre-reading of the linear stream[1]. (The program is a lazy consumer. :-) > Consider the (excellent) Tcl event loop as an example > . . . > I really recommend taking a look at the Tcl event loop and I/O > system, if you haven't already. > It's a joy to work with, and one of the best > features of that language. I agree 1000%. I believe that one design goal of parrot should be to make it as easy, or easier, to write Expect in it. In the end, there should be nothing of which it can be said, "It is easier to do in Tcl than in Perl." [2] (Tcl fans should not be offended by this; it is sincere flattery.) [1] Advanced hardware CPUs do try to get fancier, though, I'm sure. [2] That is, until both languages target parrot. -- JohnDouglasPorter __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com