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From: sgt@alice.UucP (Steve Tell)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: BUG in RUN command .. the worst kind
Message-ID: <5343@alice.uUCp>
Date: Thu, 24-Apr-86 23:34:10 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.5343
Posted: Thu Apr 24 23:34:10 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Apr-86 05:28:32 EST
References: <8604192214.AA10951@cory>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 30

>From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
>	That IDIOT *!#@$% RUN command sets the process priority of the 
>process it's running to -5!!!! Meaning, that if I have a compile running in
>the foreground, and an ED in the background, the compile gets priority over
>the ED.  So, when the compile stops going to disk and goes into it's "do nasty
>calculations all in memory", the editor stops working until the compile is
>done.
>	My question is..... how can we fix it.  More importantly, I'm asking
>the Amiga people to fix it in upcomming versions ...  the RUN command should
>set the priority to ZERO... and not make any assumptions about the process
>it's running (the current assumption being that any process in the background
>is not as important as one in the foreground).

It seems to me that since the scheduler handles priorities this
way that it severly limits the usefulness of having priorities at all.
For most of the situations I would use, there would seem to be
essentialy only low, medium, and high, with little use for more
levels.

A better fix would be to alter the scheduler so that low-priority
processes still get some time.
Then, you could pick the priorities so that the compiler was fast enough
to satisfy you, and let the editor crawl along, or whatever.
When there is a big difference in the priority numbers, Nearly all
of the time could go the high-priority one like it does now, so you'd
have the best of both worlds.

If the fix Matt sugests is implemented, lets keep the old RUN
and rename it NICE.