Xref: utzoo comp.sys.atari.st:6737 comp.sys.amiga:12487
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!praxis!gauss!sfr
From: sfr@praxis.co.uk (Stephen Rickaby)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare...
Message-ID: <1663@newton.praxis.co.uk>
Date: 4 Jan 88 10:45:22 GMT
References: <2959@cbmvax.UUCP> <11191@oliveb.UUCP> <886@louie.udel.EDU>
Sender: nobody@praxis.co.uk
Reply-To: sfr@praxis.co.uk (Stephen Rickaby)
Organization: Praxis Systems plc, Bath, UK
Lines: 35
Keywords: Multitasking, Applications, Programming

In article <886@louie.udel.EDU> rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) writes:
>In article <11191@oliveb.UUCP> dragon@olivej.olivetti.com (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) writes:
>>
>>I think that these arguments aren't representative of an *average* user,
>>since an average user is more likely not to own a modem.  Making a backup
>

(and many other contributions)

I think that there is an aspect of this argument which seems to have
escaped many contributors: a good multitasking operating system gives the
user *far more* than merely the ability to launch more than one
application at a time.

Principally, the application designer is able to design multitasking
applications which use daemons for part of their functioning, but appear
to the user as single programs, just cleverer. We all use these
facilities in Un*x without thinking about it (cf. elm), but for the
software designer the benefits are cleaner design of complex programs,
and for the user a nicer, cleverer application (spool printing,
concurrent messaging, simultaneous computation and display in complex
graphics applications, etc etc).

The bottom line here is that the *average user*, if there is such a
person, does not have to bother to understand, or even know he is using,
a multitasking opsys to benefit from it.

Steve Rickaby                                     |    ,,,
Praxis Systems plc                                |  < O_O > 
20 Manvers Street, Bath, BA1 1PX, UK              | ==( . )==
Tel: +44 225 444700 Tx: 445848 PRAXIS G           |         Prrrouwf, Wackwacka
sfr%praxis.uuc@ukc.ac.uk                          | 
!mcvax!ukc!praxis!sfr                             |
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