Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!decvax!spray!anson
From: anson@spray.CalComp.COM (Ed Anson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Changing the pointer icon
Message-ID: <2340@spray.CalComp.COM>
Date: 15 Jun 88 13:39:08 GMT
References: <5157@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> <2327@spray.CalComp.COM> <6383@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: anson@spray.UUCP (Ed Anson)
Organization: CalComp Inc., A Lockheed Company, Hudson, NH, USA
Lines: 27

In article <6383@cup.portal.com> David_Alan_Newman@cup.portal.com writes:
>
>We found that some DA's, and/or other applications running under MF would
>issue ReleaseResource calls for all the cursors they had used. This would
>in effect 'yank' the system cursors right out from under us! System resources
>are supposed to be shared, image if people started issuing releases for
>WDEF's, CDEF's, etc!

This is only a small part of a larger problem I've noticed. Sometimes, there
are several parts of the same application that must get and release various
resources. Sometimes they are the same resources.

The current situation forces me to one of several alternatives: 1) always
leave the resource allocated after getting it (wasteful of memory); 2) do
a DetachResource to keep other modules from releasing it (even more
wasteful, in general); or 3) set up a complex bookkeeping system so that
I know which resources are still needed.

A PROPOSAL: Why doesn't Apple just modify the resource manager so that it
keeps track of how many requests for a resource are still outstanding. This
would mean adding a "use count" to the master pointer block. Applications
would then be required to balance gets and releases of each resource. Of
course, a compatibility mode could be provided which would cause the old
behavior to occur by default -- but only within one application.
-- 
=====================================================================
   Ed Anson,    Calcomp Display Products Division,    Hudson NH 03051
   (603) 885-8712,      anson@elrond.CalComp.COM