Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!rnpantos
From: rnpantos@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Roger Pantos)
Subject: New memory allocation trap
Message-ID: <1991Jan15.010658.26241@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Keywords: system heap
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 01:06:58 GMT
Lines: 39



    I have a suggestion to the Powers That Be at Apple in charge of 
implementing new System stuff:

    How about creating a new trap that would allow applications to 
allocate handle-based memory from the (dynamically-resizeable) 
system heap? This would allow many programs to run with a minimal 
"Multifinder partition", yet be able to get memory when they needed it. 
        
    It seems to be a real waste to give Qued/M 1024K to play with, if 
all I'm editing is a 40K file. Under this scheme, you might only have to 
close a few documents to free up enough memory to launch another 
program, not kill an entire app.
        
    (I'm aware that you can now ask for a chunk of memory from 
Multifinder, but it must be "temporary" - there is no way that this 
would replace an application's need to have a large heap space.)
        
    There would not be any radical change from the application 
programmer's point of view - handles are handles are handles, no 
matter which heap they're in. You might have to check for low-memory 
a little more carefully (gasp :-)  but apart from that there's little 
difference.
        
    (The system would have to keep track of who owns what, so that 
if an app died unexpectedly its memory could be freed up.)
        
    It may not be so simple to implement, but I think that life under 
Multifinder would improve enough to make it worthwhile.
        
    Comments?


-- 
---
Roger Pantos		rnpantos@watdragon.waterloo.edu		4B AM Hell :-)
My connection to the U of Waterloo is as a paying customer, not a spokesman.
	-+-		"Mac vs NeXT: just hit 'n'"		-+-