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> You get into hairy problems of definition, but you can definitely create an "async" runtime out of "sync" operations: implement an async runtime with calls to C. C doesn't have a concept of "async", and more or less all async runtime end up like this.

While C doesn't have async OS generally provide APIs which are non-blocking, and that is what async runtimes are implemented on top of.

By sync operations I mean implementing an "async" runtime entirely atop blocking operations, without bouncing them through any sort of worker threads or anything.



I've been pondering this, it feels like a brain teaser. Is it possible to create an "async" runtime out of only blocking operations?

It feels like it turns purely on what "blocking operations" are (does setting a lock bit and returning count as non-blocking?)




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