RE: Migration ... change for Thread Pool

[Hes Siemelink <he...@izecom.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Noel J. Bergman [mailto:noel@devtech.com] 
> Sent: donderdag 29 juli 2004 18:44
> To: James Developers List
> Subject: RE: Migration ... change for Thread Pool
>
> > 1) Is it an option to use the Apache Commons Thread Pool?
> >    It is stable, widely used and highly configurable.
>
> Someone would have to write a block for it.

Do you think that would be a good idea?

> > I would like to be able to configure my thread pool so it
> > blocks (with a time-out) until a new thread is available,
> > so more mail will be accepted when the load is high.
>
> Not everyone wants the same thing, which is why you can replace the  
> thread manager.  However, take a look at the ResourceLimitingThread 
> classes in  http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/avalon/cvs-migration-
snapshot/avalon-components/cornerstone/threads/impl/src/java/org/apache/avalon/cornerstone/blocks/threads/.  The configuration options should be flexible enough to 
> support both.

Whoa – that *is* hidden! You know, even for a trained user that is quite buried!
Does this mean I can add the following line to my config file?

   <thread-manager>
      <thread-group>
         <name>default</name>
         <priority>5</priority>
         <is-daemon>false</is-daemon>
         <max-threads>20</max-threads>
         <min-threads>20</min-threads>
         <min-spare-threads>10</min-spare-threads>

<!--  Tell thread manager to wait for 5 seconds for a thread to become available -->         <block-timeout>5000<block-timeout> 

      </thread-group>
   </thread-manager>


To make life easier, I think it would be a good idea to document this in the config file.
And why not make include all Avalon (Excalibur, Cornerstoner, etc) sources in a james-with-all--sources release? 

> If someone wants to write a ThreadManager that uses Jakarta Commons 
> instead of the Excalibur classes, go for it.  You can use the 
> ResourceLimitingThread code and our org.apache.james.util.thread 
> package as examples.  Our package is a self-contained implementation of 
> everything necessary, importing only interfaces from Avalon.

I would suggest standardizing on one thread package – on the one that is most stable, documented, widely used and supported.  I don’t know which one of the currently available implementations that would be.  If you were to start from scratch, I think I would choose the Apache Commons library, but that is mostly because I haven’t been able to find clear documentation on the use of the others.

Cheers,

	Hes.