[External] : Re: Can continuation support finally solve the "How do I stop this thread" problem?

[Ron Pressler]

> On 7 Sep 2022, at 09:05, Alex Otenko <oleksandr.otenko at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On a different but somewhat related note. What do we get when we can't create a new thread? I think we get an OOME.
> 
> Is there a way to limit the number of Virtual threads platform-wide so we get an error that can be handled in some other way than trying to catch and analyze OOME?


No, just as there is no way to limit the number of Strings, ArrayLists, CompletableFutures or native byte buffers platform-wide — or platform threads for that matter. Threads are just objects, and virtual threads are objects that are more similar to Strings or CompletableFuture in their resource consumption than to platform threads or native buffers, so there’s also no reason to do that any more than for other kinds of objects. But you can monitor the number of Threads in the platform with MBeans (mostly because virtual threads are threads, and we provide that service for threads).

Creation of virtual threads can be controlled by the application using the mechanisms available today to control any kind of object (say, a semaphore).

— Ron