Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!texbell!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: resource tracking Keywords: Discipline, discipline Message-ID: <5159@sugar.hackercorp.com> Date: 16 Feb 90 04:42:20 GMT References: <355.25C92297@weyr.FIDONET.ORG> <926@tardis.Tymnet.COM> <352@amgraf.UUCP> <5156@sugar.hackercorp.com> Reply-To: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston Lines: 19 In article <5156@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: > Regular memory allocation calls probably happen ten thousand times more often > than IPC stuff. IPC is the exception... On UNIX IPC is the exception. On the Amiga, IPC is the norm. Every system call is actually a message passed to another program. All these messages have to be tracked, and while it would have been possible to do this (say, by passing a size with the message so the memory ownership could be handled by the O/S), it wouldn't be easy. Think about what happens when a driver replies to a task that's been killed. Of course, the alternative is for the *task* to handle this, and that's really no easier... but it's not such an unreasonable thing for Amiga to have left out considering the circumstances. -- _--_|\ Peter da Silva . / \ \_.--._/ I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere! v "Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-'