Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: GNU c and c++ under MINIX
Message-ID: <1988Sep16.173209.16780@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3602@encore.UUCP> <7056@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 88 17:32:09 GMT

In article <7056@megaron.arizona.edu> cjeffery@arizona.edu (Clinton Jeffery) writes:
>If I understand what's been posted about the new 1.3 network software,
>its interprocess communications facilities will enable Minix
>to run those large applications which are written well enough to
>allow a decomposition of the application into component processes.

Decomposing large applications into component processes is often very
difficult; not too many applications naturally fall apart into pieces.
Some (e.g. compilers) *appear* to fall apart, but then you discover
that the pieces all want access to major data structures.  You *can*
put those data structures on disk, but the less said about performance
impact, the better.  (I was peripherally involved, once, with a compiler
effort that had to do that.  Boy it was slow.)
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu