What's the problem? (Was: Are there plans for a multi-threaded Emacs?)

[Luke Gorrie]

Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:

> I'm convinced, based on the many posts made, that the best way to
> approach multithreading is slowly and incrementally.

What's the biggest problem that threads are intended to solve?

Is it that it's too hard or ugly to write concurrent programs in Elisp
today? If so, what are some examples of bad cases that cause users
pain and _really_ can't be rewritten neatly and with happy concurrency
properties in plain old Elisp after some rethinking?

(Sorry if I have missed definitive examples earlier in the thread!)

People are writing concurrent programs in Elisp today. Most programs
interacting with external processes and sockets do so without blocking
Emacs. Can't we all just do the same?

Cheers,
Luke