Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!visix!news
From: amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: How to malloc memory VERY dynamically and not out of app heap?
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.175023.12330@visix.com>
Date: 2 Apr 91 17:50:23 GMT
References: <1CE00001.binbdde@tbomb.ice.com> <2043@seti.inria.fr>
Sender: news@visix.com
Organization: Visix Software Inc., Reston, VA
Lines: 28

In article <2043@seti.inria.fr> pete@adele.inria.fr (Pete Keleher) writes:

   How often do you read 10meg files, Tim? Do you want every application to
   throw out a clean simple design in favor of re-implementing system services
   just so that 10meg file can be read in a little faster? Meanwhile, code
   complexity is greatly increased, code size as well.

Generally speaking, a small increase in code complexity can vastly improve
the range of conditions under which a program will perform well.  In a
commercial application, this kind of investment is well worth it.

   Computer science majors are taught to think in terms of abstractions.
   Optimize for the common case. If the 10meg file is your common case, then
   you aren't looking for a general purpose editor.

True, but if your product can't handle "unusual" cases, it needs
improvement.  Customers don't care how spartan the code is--if it doesn't
let them get their work done, it's broken.

It's amazing what the commercial environment can do for your sense of
pragmatism :)...

--
Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.					...!uunet!visix!amanda
-- 
"I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck."
		-- Rob Pike commenting on the X Window System