Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!amanda@intercon.com From: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: Need info on multitasking capabilities on the mac Message-ID: <1576@intercon.com> Date: 28 Nov 89 15:46:23 GMT References: <6432@tank.uchicago.edu> <1574@intercon.com> <14002@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Sender: news@intercon.com Reply-To: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation Lines: 24 In article <14002@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>, ghe@nucthy.physics.orst.edu (Guangliang He) writes: > On a UNIX machine, you really get the control you > want. Although you can't go too faster (get a cray if you really want > fast). you can always slow your job. And so can anyone else, whether you want them to or not. MultiFinder doesn't let you control process priority from outside the program, I admit, and it would occasionally be nice to be able to override an application's minimum timeslice interval (which is why our applications let users do it :-)). Look, every multitasking system has its own strengths and weaknesses. "Fair" scheduling (or even UNIX-style scheduling) is much more appropriate for a multi-user system (like a VAX) than for a single-user system (like a Mac). Under MultiFinder, the application I am interacting with gets the most CPU share, and even more importantly, gets to control when it gives it up. This means that even if I'm compiling 70,000 lines of C in the background (which I actually do from time to time), I can still sit and read my mail or news without noticing much of a difference in response time. Do that on a Sun with 4M of memory and a window system :-). Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation --