Self & Parallelism

[Anne C. van Rossum]

Dear list members,

Online I read some articles about Self. I find it a very interesting
language. I'm also interested in the optimizing compiler, but with a
slightly different touch.

I'm thinking about a way in which an application can be sliced into
different tasks. Within a task entities may communicate with each
other in a synchronous way. Between tasks communication is in a
asynchronous way. (A task is a threaded entity.) An optimizing
compiler dynamically reconfigures the application in an amount of
tasks that performs optimal. This depends e.g. on the amount of
processors.

I'm interested how parallelism, concurrency, distribution, etc. is
seen in Self. What kind of abstractions are used or invented? Are
threads adopted? Or are communicating sequential processes used? Or
does Self have its own view on concurrency too?

Kind regards,

Anne