Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!hsi!stpstn!cox From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: True Multitasking, True Object-oriented, True anything. Message-ID: <6082@stpstn.UUCP> Date: 21 Jan 91 14:38:53 GMT References: <1991Jan16.005818.3521@rodan.acs.syr.edu> Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) Organization: Stepstone Lines: 38 In article <1991Jan16.005818.3521@rodan.acs.syr.edu> wwtaroli@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Bill Taroli) writes: >In article kkirksey@eng.auburn.edu (Kenneth B. Kirksey) writes: >>Can somebody please tell me why Apple has yet to implement TRUE multitasking >>in the system software? I know that it's really not that hard of a task, >>especially since the amiga has had it for quite some time. Is there a valid >>reason for not doing it? I'm really curious > >I think you've used just about one of the most vague terms in the comuting >world. The software swamp is full of such vague terms. IMHO, this stems from a semi-religious belief, or dogma, that there is a single, best meaning for any term; i.e. a panacea meaning that applies to everything, at every level of granularity. Mature domains, like hardware engineering, don't get into these hassles, which in my opinion, is only a sign of software's immaturity. Just as hardware engineers package some stuff as office equipment (rack-level integration), other stuff as cards (card-level integration), other stuff as chips, and others as silicon blocks and gates, isn't the same likely to work for us? My Nov90 IEEE software article, Planning the Software Industrial Revolution, proposes that we bypass this immature confusion by adopting the hardware engineering vocabulary, and particularly its impatience with those who seek single, 'true', panacea solutions: Rack-level integration: as in Unix heavyweight processes; preemptive Card-level integration: lightweight coroutines; non-preemptive Chip-level integration: loosely coupled objects as in Smalltalk/Objective-C Block-level integration: tightly-coupled objects packaged as subroutines Chip-level integration: tightly-coupled objects; expressions, variables, etc -- Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875 The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482