Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!martin
From: martin@cbmvax.commodore.com (Martin Hunt)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Re^2: Macintosh OS
Message-ID: <12375@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 7 Jun 90 00:48:17 GMT
References: <402@newave.UUCP> <3300131@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <5031@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> <1990May28.083518.26003@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu> <54992@microsoft.UUCP> <12189@cbmvax.commodore.com> <355@three.MV.COM>
Reply-To: martin@cbmvax (Martin Hunt)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 26

>A properly written user oriented program would check for events frequently, 
>even in the middle of a heavy duty CPU burst.  That is just good user 
>oriented development though.  Remember: The USER is in control.

That may be your definition of proper software. but it sure isn't mine!
Do you really suggest that in the innermost loop of a ray tracer there
should be a call to a function that checks for any higher priority tasks
that need the CPU?  Maybe I should just include such a call every 10th
line or so.
>
>See above.  At a minimum, each application should get some CPU time each
>second.  If your application is processing in bursts that are too large,
>it is broken -- it needs to be fixed.

It's the OS that is broken, not the application.  With a lot of effort
from the programmers and a good choice of applications, a cooperative
multitasking system can look as good as preemptive, but it's really
just a good example of applications doing work that needs to be done by the OS.


>Cory Kempf				I do speak for the company (sometimes).


-- 
Martin Hunt                     martin@cbmvax.commodore.com
Commodore-Amiga Engineering     {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!martin