Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!cernvax!ethz!forty2!poole
From: poole@forty2.UUCP (Simon Poole)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Malloc (was Re: Another great quote from Mr. Good)
Message-ID: <443@forty2.UUCP>
Date: 24 Aug 88 22:30:24 GMT
References: <1116@atari.UUCP} <692@auvax.UUCP} <1121@atari.UUCP> <6339@chinet.UUCP> <402@clio.math.lsa.umich.edu>
Reply-To: poole@forty2.UUCP (Simon Poole)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Exp. Physics University Zuerich
Lines: 23

One thing  has got slightly lost in  this discussion, that we  are not
talking about  just fixing bugs in  Malloc, but the  whole function of
the Malloc call would change. Until now Malloc has been useful (modulo
the bugs) as a large scale  allocator for a limited  amount of blocks,
changing Malloc to be  a  general purpose memory allocator, won't help
anybody who actually has  applications out there (or  is writing a new
one), because these programs will break  on old versions of  TOS. With
other words,  your application won't   run  on the  computers  of  the
largest part of your potential customers.

You can naturally get around this by distributing  the new TOS on disk
(perhaps together with your program?),  but how many  program run on a
520ST  - 200kB ?   Matter of fact  you would  be  supprised how   many
programs don't run on a 1040ST - 200kB (I've been booting the Beta-TOS
from disk for  the last two  months, since the EPROM's  never  made it
here).

PS: anyway as Moshe Braner pointed out, Malloc is far too slow for any-
    thing serious.......
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