Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!csun!polyslo!dorourke
From: dorourke@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (David M. O'Rourke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: multitasking and IPC (was: System 8.0: no more DA's.)
Message-ID: <6717@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 28 Dec 88 18:28:32 GMT
References: <1988Dec16.191309.21623@cs.rochester.edu> <326@internal.Apple.COM> <807@esl.UUCP> <747@lts.UUCP>
Reply-To: dorourke@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (David M. O'Rourke)
Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo
Lines: 38

In article <747@lts.UUCP> amanda@lts.UUCP (Amanda Walker) writes:
>Macintosh, then use another machine.  However, if you want to write
>something that works well on the Macintosh, then it's *your*
>responsibility to do it right.  Contrary to popular belief :-), Apple
>really doesn't have Thought Police, but they do have user interface
>and programming guidelines for a reason, and that reason is simply that
>if an application does not follow at least a minimum of them, it won't
>work well.

  Yes, I've been programming/teaching Mac programming for two years now and
I realize that the Macintosh isn't conventional.  But you as a programmer
should not have to worry about schedualing your process or someone elses.
The event driven nature of programming a Macintosh is independant {or should
be} from the task schedualing.

>See, this is where we disagree.  From the very start, Macintosh
>applications have been supposed to be interruptible.  This has little
>to do with multitasking--it just made MultiFinder possible in the
>first place.

   I think you're confused :-(

>No, your argument misses the point.  It's precisely those
>"user-interaction-free" computations that should be
>interruptible/restartable/suspendable/whatever, and this is a separate
>issue from preemptive multitasking.

  No it's not.  What is wrong with pre-emptive multi-tasking?  All it does is
take the current process and suspend it, start a new one, and so on until you're
back to the beginning again.  Pre-emptive multitasking is a separate issue
from the Mac's user interface.  I should be able to recalculate a spread
sheet in the background with out having to place a wait next event  or
otherwise every ten lines of code.
-- 
David M. O'Rourke                                  dorourke@polyslo.calpoly.edu

"If it doesn't do Windows, then it's not a computer!!!"
Disclaimer: I don't represent the school.  All opinions are mine!