Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!news.funet.fi!cc.tut.fi!cc.tut.fi!n67786 From: n67786@lehtori.tut.fi (Nieminen Tero) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: True Multitasking Message-ID: Date: 16 Jan 91 06:41:15 GMT References: <19019@shlump.nac.dec.com> <42588@ut-emx.uucp> <1991Jan15.233452.1163@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> <48134@apple.Apple.COM> Sender: n67786@cc.tut.fi (Nieminen Tero) Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland. Lines: 28 In-Reply-To: heksterb@Apple.COM's message of 16 Jan 91 00:16:46 GMT In article <48134@apple.Apple.COM> heksterb@Apple.COM (Ben Hekster) writes: These are indeed all examples of system resources. Although the OS does manage resources, it is up to the application to use them wisely. An analog to the processor-preemptive multitasking system, we could have memory-preemptive multitasking too--use all the memory you want, but keep it too long, and the OS pulls the rug out from under your feet... Save documents on disk? Fine--but if some other application needs space on a full volume, the OS will automatically delete enough files to make room for it... Well, you get my drift. To me, processor non-preemption seems to make sense. In the same way, still my opinion of course, if an application programmer feels that the user will be best served by completing a certain task as quickly as possible without interference from other applications that may happen to be present, he can implement this. If the application is performing a lengthy task, it might relinquish processor time to allow its user to do something else in the meantime. Isn't it exactly same wether the OS or the programmer gets the decisision on things like this. BTW, how is the programmer to know he's program is more important than some other program, let alone make the decision. Let the user choose and give us preemptive multitasking and controll over cpu time usage. -- Tero Nieminen Tampere University of Technology n67786@cc.tut.fi Tampere, Finland, Europe