Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!gatech!ukma!sean
From: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Task KILL for Amiga
Message-ID: <10939@s.ms.uky.edu>
Date: 22 Jan 89 09:12:45 GMT
References: <3716@crash.cts.com> <10908@s.ms.uky.edu> <5713@cbmvax.UUCP> <10926@s.ms.uky.edu> <5748@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey)
Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY
Lines: 32

In article <5748@cbmvax.UUCP> jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) writes:
>        Here are some of the reasons you're wrong:  resources get passed
>from one process/task to another, frequently.  Resources are sometimes passed
>permanently, sometimes temporarily.  AllocMem/FreeMem are often done for
>small chunks, and very often.  There are MANY resources, and orderings in which
>they must be released.  The system wasn't designed for it originally (or
>rather the never-completed original OS did some of it (though not all).  Users
>allocate system structures and pass them to the system, instead of vice-versa.
>We have very limited programmer resources.  Improperly written programs will
>leave the system potentially munged anyways, so cleaning up after them is
>very risky, at best (witness GOMF - sometimes saves you, but often doesn't, or
>you die a short time later).

Ok so the reason resources aren't being tracked is because:

1. Resource passing makes it too complicated.
2. Memory is allocated in very small chunks.
3. There are many resources.
4. It wasn't written into the system.
5. Nasty programs can make recovery impossible.

These don't seem like insurmountable obstacles, except possibly for the
last. Consider running Amigados on an MMUed machine. Then #5 would be
no problem at all. That's the biggest reason I'd like to see resource
tracking; taking advantage of an MMU.

Sean
-- 
***  Sean Casey                        sean@ms.uky.edu,  sean@ukma.bitnet
***  Who sometimes never learns.       {backbone site|rutgers|uunet}!ukma!sean
***  U of K, Lexington Kentucky, USA  ..where Christian movies are banned.
***  ``There's only TWO THINGS come out of Oklahoma...''