Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge
From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: CNews building up files in "in.coming"
Summary: 6 of one, half a dozen the other...
Message-ID: <1989Oct28.054723.5312@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 89 05:47:23 GMT
References: <1989Oct22.192159.4827@acd4.UUCP> <1989Oct23.023759.17067@utzoo.uucp> <1989Oct25.023352.8840@twwells.com> <9686@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <254859E3.19004@ateng.com>
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Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
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chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>According to zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff):
>>The horrible per batch start-up overhead of C news make large batches the
>>only way to go.

>C News overhead isn't "horrible" no matter what you look at.  Except for
>inews, maybe.  :-)  But inews isn't involved in unbatching.

IMHO both sides are right to some extent. Jon is right in claiming that
the per-batch start-up overhead is really pretty high. There's quite a
lot done in the standard code --- shell scripts are not cheap to start
with (lots of forks); locking and unlocking costs; checking free space
costs; running down the directory looking for batches isn't free.

On the other hand, Chip is right in claiming that C is never "horrible"
if installed correctly. There are ways of doing things "better", but
you give something up for what you gain (mainly error recovery, see other
postings for specifics).

A good partial compromise is to rewrite newsrun in C, thereby removing
some of the really wasteful costs involved in running shell scripts
(albeit at the cost of portability --- trade-offs all over the place).

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.