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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Re: signal handling in 4.2: Is this - (nf)
Message-ID: <3422@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Dec-83 19:20:05 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3422
Posted: Tue Dec 20 19:20:05 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Dec-83 19:20:05 EST
References: <2040@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 15

While I fully agree with Rob Warnock that signals are not software
interrupts, that they were never intended as such, and that anyone
who uses them as such is insane and deserves what he gets...  May
the gods preserve us from people who think real software interrupts
are wonderful and desirable!!!  Why do you think the first act of
practically every decent operating system in existence, when it gets
an interrupt, is to turn it into something more civilized (e.g. a
wakeup or a semaphore operation)?  Interrupts are an ugly, low-level,
terribly error-prone form of communication.  I agree that Unix could
use better interprocess communication (and that signals were never
intended to be such), but real software interrupts are the *last*
thing we want!  Higher-level primitives, **PLEASE**!
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry