[pron]

Virtual threads are just Java threads, so any blocking code using any API will just work. If you're looking for introductory material on virtual threads with specific examples you can find some here: https://openjdk.org/jeps/444, https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/21/core/virtual-threa..., https://youtu.be/l_Vlz0wkG58?si=MF-XJW7c8T5jGf5i&t=1914

If there's something unclear in that material, please ask. Also, there is no our framework vs. their framework here. I'm only discussing the JDK's own various thread pools vs. virtual threads. They were all designed and implemented by the JDK team.

BTW, I'm not trying to support any opinion. Pretty much all popular Java server frameworks are adopting virtual threads, and Java's virtual threads are poised to become the most popular lightweight user mode threads. We've already convinced everyone that needed convincing. I'm merely offering pointers in case you're interested to learn how to use virtual threads and understand how they offer high throughput and good observability at the same time (whereas before you could have one or the other). Of course, if you're satisfied with the throughput and observability you can get with our old mechanisms, you don't have to use virtual threads. We've not taken anything away.

[riku_iki]

There is this example in material:

try (var in = url.openStream()) { return new String(in.readAllBytes(), StandardCharsets.UTF_8); }

which claims that this example will scale well with virtual threads, my understanding is that in.readAllBytes() will call OS blocking socket API underneath, which will block OS thread, so you would need many OS threads to scale. Is this understanding correct?

[pron]

It is not. Blocking IO (with some exceptions mentioned in the JEP) will automatically be translated by the runtime into non-blocking IO when it occurs on virtual threads, and no OS threads will be blocked. The Java code will look blocking and that's what thread dumps and other Java observability mechanisms will show, but to the OS it will seem as if it's running non-blocking code.

You can have a million threads blocking on a million sockets (obviously without creating a million OS threads): https://github.com/ebarlas/project-loom-c5m

You can't do that with thread pools. You could achieve that scalability with async code, but then observability tools will not be able to track the IO operations and who initiated them, but with virtual threads you'll see exactly what business operation is doing what IO and why.

[riku_iki]

> will automatically be translated by the runtime into non-blocking IO when it occurs on virtual threads, and no OS threads will be blocked

it looks like it is true for several API you implemented support for. What about other API, for example some JDBC driver which wants to use non-blocking DB driver. How to use virtual threads with that?

[pron]

JDBC drivers are implemented on top of JDK APIs and so will work the same way: their I/O would automatically be non-blocking when run on a virtual thread (module some quality-of-implementation issues around the use of synchronized that we're working on, which are mentioned in the material I linked to).

JDBC drivers that are implemented on top of their own native code are a different matter, but they are not common these days.