[Isolate-interest] shared heap between isolates?

[Pete Soper]

Hi Bernhard,

> Is it possible for isolates to negotiate a shared heap space?

	   Isolate heaps are, by definition, isolated perfectly from the heaps 
of other isolates and so there is no sharing of objects available whatsoever. 
I don't think this prevents multiple isolates contributing to the rendering of 
a single GUI but it makes for a different design exercise from the more familiar
ones where visibility can only be controlled by class loader scoping.

> Shared heaps would also be useful in server applications

	IBM has explored this area (see their citations in the bibliography
at http://bitser.net/isolate-interest/bib.html). 
	However IBM and the rest of the EG members have agreed to focus on 
getting perfect isolation into Java with JSR121 with the expectation that
proper understanding of this will naturally drive us toward more sophistication.

> with NUMAflex or similar environments.

Googling this showed some quite interesting pages. If I had to think of a 
futuristic hardware model most suited to isolates I'd be tempted to think of a 
system based on asynchronous logic where every storage location is inside its
own isolate.

-Pete