Path: utzoo!lsuc!ncrcan!brambo!morgan
From: morgan@brambo.UUCP (Morgan W. Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Need info on exceptions
Message-ID: <416@brambo.UUCP>
Date: 28 Aug 88 16:29:21 GMT
References: <4989@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <566@wuphys.UUCP> <1754@munsell.UUCP> <413@brambo.UUCP> <632@super.ORG> <414@brambo.UUCP> <657@super.ORG>
Reply-To: morgan@brambo.UUCP (Morgan W. Jones)
Organization: Bramalea Software Inc., Bramalea, Ont.
Lines: 27

In article <657@super.ORG> rminnich@metropolis.UUCP (Ronald G Minnich) writes:
>Seems like you might need to actually use this sort of system 
>for a while before you understand it. I can't see why this is 
>so hard for people to get. 
>No, this is NOT A PROBLEM. You have a single writer, single reader. 
>The variable relating to DONENESS will INCREASE SLOWLY AS THE 
>COMPUTATION PROCEEDS. YOU CAN LOOK AT IT AT ANY TIME!
>PEOPLE DO THIS SORT OF THING ALL THE TIME!!! AMAZING, HUH?
>ron

Geeze, take a downer, Ron, it really isn't taking a fit over.

And why don't you try reading the original message instead of people's
reply to it.  The person doesn't want to know how far along the
computation is, he wants to save a checkpoint.  Since this would be
changing at the same time as it was being saved, YOU DO NEED CRITICAL
SECTION PROTECTION.

BTW, reading the "variable relating to DONENESS", as you put it, can
only be read without CS protection if it is something that can be read
in one machine instruction.  If the value was a float you'd have to
make sure that it wasn't updated while you were reading it.

-- 
Morgan Jones                                 morgan@hcr.UUCP
Human Computing Resources, Toronto, Canada
"BMATH - 8 months and counting ..."