New implementation of BLACKHOLEs

This replaces the global blackhole_queue with a clever scheme that
enables us to queue up blocked threads on the closure that they are
blocked on, while still avoiding atomic instructions in the common
case.

Advantages:

 - gets rid of a locked global data structure and some tricky GC code
   (replacing it with some per-thread data structures and different
   tricky GC code :)

 - wakeups are more prompt: parallel/concurrent performance should
   benefit.  I haven't seen anything dramatic in the parallel
   benchmarks so far, but a couple of threading benchmarks do improve
   a bit.

 - waking up a thread blocked on a blackhole is now O(1) (e.g. if
   it is the target of throwTo).

 - less sharing and better separation of Capabilities: communication
   is done with messages, the data structures are strictly owned by a
   Capability and cannot be modified except by sending messages.

 - this change will utlimately enable us to do more intelligent
   scheduling when threads block on each other.  This is what started
   off the whole thing, but it isn't done yet (#3838).

I'll be documenting all this on the wiki in due course.

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/rts/sm/Compact.c b/rts/sm/Compact.c
index 39284f9112..6de42efae4 100644
--- a/rts/sm/Compact.c
+++ b/rts/sm/Compact.c
@@ -628,8 +628,8 @@ thread_obj (StgInfoTable *info, StgPtr p)
     case IND_PERM:
     case MUT_VAR_CLEAN:
     case MUT_VAR_DIRTY:
-    case CAF_BLACKHOLE:
     case BLACKHOLE:
+    case BLOCKING_QUEUE:
     {
 	StgPtr end;
 	
@@ -967,9 +967,6 @@ compact(StgClosure *static_objects)
     // any threads resurrected during this GC
     thread((void *)&resurrected_threads);
 
-    // the blackhole queue
-    thread((void *)&blackhole_queue);
-
     // the task list
     {
 	Task *task;