Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!ncar!midway!zaphod!francis From: francis@uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: New memory allocation trap Message-ID: Date: 15 Jan 91 06:20:09 GMT References: <1991Jan15.010658.26241@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) Organization: Mathematics Department, University of Chicago Lines: 36 In-Reply-To: rnpantos@watdragon.waterloo.edu's message of 15 Jan 91 01:06:58 GMT In article <1991Jan15.010658.26241@watdragon.waterloo.edu> rnpantos@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Roger Pantos) writes: [...] 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. [...] There is a very good reason for having speified sizes on MF partitions: it keeps programs from grabbing more memory than you want them to. This puts control in the hands of the user. The current setup does make it a little harder on the user, but it's not an unsolvable problem. In the example you gave (how many times have we used that phrase? :-), you could (1) kill some other app, (2) lower its partition size, and (3) relaunch it. It's the user's machine, not the programmer's. Let him allocate RAM as he sees fit. Granted, users (esp. of Macs) are often idiotic little snot-faces, but we don't want them to realize we think that-- they might get offended, & not use our programs. :-) -- ============================================================================== | Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.| | Department of Mathematics |=============================================| | University of Chicago | Until you stalk and overrun, | | francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | you can't devour anyone. -- Hobbes | ==============================================================================