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Event-Driven Programming for Robust Software

Frank Dabek and Nickolai Zeldovich and Frans Kaashoek and David Mazieres and Robert Morris

Abstract

Events are a better means of managing I/O concurrency in server software than threads: events help avoid bugs caused by the unnecessary CPU concurrency introduced by threads. Event-based programs also tend to have more stable performance under heavy load than threaded programs. We argue that our libasync-smp non-blocking I/O library makes event-based programming convenient and evaluate extensions to the library that allow event-based programs to take advantage of multi-processors. We conclude that events provide all the benefits of threads, with substantially less complexity; the result is more robust software.

In the Proceedings of SIGOPS European Workshop 2002, Saint-Emilion, France, September, 2002 (BibTeX entry)

Paper text: PDF, PS, gzipped PS