Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!apple!nerm
From: nerm@Apple.COM (Dean Yu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: All about sys 7.0 <long>
Message-ID: <50789@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 26 Mar 91 09:47:52 GMT
References: <1991Mar21.095051.29206@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <593@genco.bungi.com>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 56

In article <593@genco.bungi.com> rad@genco.bungi.com (Bob Daniel) writes:
>In article <1991Mar21.095051.29206@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> horcel@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>>
>>Q:  Where is the multitasking Macintosh Operating System?
>>A:  The Macintosh operating system has been multitasking since the
>>    introduction of MultiFinder.  Many applications take full advantage
>>    of MultiFinder by allowing concurrent printing, recalculating
>>    spreadsheets, sorting databases, and downloading files.
>
>This makes me squirm a bit that Apple says MF is multitasking.  At best, MF
>is multiapplication.  Try bringing up a dialog and watch all background
>processes come to a hault.  Try pulling down a menu bar (even under Sys7)
>and watch everything stop.  During a download, pull up a dialog from another
>application and watch the download come to a hault and eventually cancel out.
>While an application has a progress dialog up, try putting it in the 
>background and pull up something else.
>
>Alot of this has been improved in Sys7 with "semi-modal" dialogs but does Apple
>really think the current MF is really Multitasking?  OK, so it's "cooperative-
>multitasking", but is MF really all that cooperative?  Only if the developer
>makes it friendly?  I don't think so, even if the developer uses modal dialogs,
>he/she has no control of allowing background tasking to occur (without doing
>some acrobatic tricks).  Even under Sys7, he/she would have to convert ALL
>modal dialogs to "semi-modal" dialogs to allow background *tasks* to continue.
>Then there is menus.  Even under Sys7, pulling down a menu will hault all
>background tasks.  
>

  I really should know better than to open my mouth on this subject, but...
Background applications do not "come to a halt" when you have a modal dialog
up in the foreground application.  They will continue to receive time.
  Yes, things do stop when a menu is held down.  Usually, that's only for a
short period of time.  You can always write an INIT that installs a procedure
in MenuHook which calls _EventAvail or _GetOSEvent if you really want.  That
would give up time to background applications.  (That was Dean the Skanky INIT
writer talking, not Dean the Apple Employee.)

>I like MF alot and I like Sys7 a whole lot but it bothers me that Apple
>would consider MF to be multitasking (even if you consider it to be, it 
>isn't very cooperative).  Making a statement like that makes it appear 
>that they don't need to improve the multitaskiness of the Mac.
>

  I think that's a misinterpretation.  I don't think that saying that we
put MultiFinder into the System is equivalent to "That's as multitasking as
we're going to get."
  Also, we of the net are pretty much all power users to some extent.  We've
all had MultiFinder since 1.0, so we don't think of it as a new feature.  Do
keep in mind that there are people out in the boonies who don't have access
to the Internet that may still possibly be running Finder, and System 7.0
will definitely be a boon to them.

  -- Dean Yu
     Blue Meanie, Negative Ethnic Role Model, & Underslept.
     Apple Computer, Inc.
     My opinions and so on and so forth...