Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Can a parent process determine its child's status ?
Keywords: /proc filesystem
Message-ID: <12310@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 7 Mar 90 23:54:26 GMT
References: <30@ctbilbo.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 34

In article <30@ctbilbo.UUCP> ray@ctbilbo.UUCP (Ray Ward) writes:
>In article <12229@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>>Sure there is.  You can access that information through the /proc
>>filesystem.  If you don't have this, complain to your vendor.
>I have noticed from your other postings that you are very knowledgeable
>as well as helpful.  Have you slipped into one of my habits --
>giving a more technical response than is indicated -- or have I
>misjudged, on the low side, the technical experience of the poster?
>Or, indeed, of c.u.questions?

Probably it just reflected my general frustration at how long it
takes to get vendors (including UCB) to pick up good ideas and
incorporate them in what they distribute.  I still recall with
amazement and some degree of anger how Larry Brown had never heard
of Dennis Ritchie's work on "stackable line disciplines" that finally
(perhaps I provided a small amount of initial impetus) got adopted by
AT&T as "STREAMS".  To their credit, AT&T (UNIX Operation, or whoever
the developers are these days) has been much, much better about
improving UNIX recently than they were just a few years ago.

Another point, however, is that detailed examination and control of
processes is simply not a novice topic.  Until we get practically
all vendors to get with the program, as opposed to going off and
building incompatible UNIX-like variants, programmers simply don't
have simple solutions at hand for hard problems.  At best, they have
to implement several solutions to cover the different flavors of UNIX
(assuming they're concerned with porting their applications, as for
the most part they should be).  At worst, they cannot reasonably
solve their technical problems on some platforms.

What I think programmers could do to help is to get their computer
acquisition staff to inform vendors that they will be specifying
conformance to XPG3, SVID3, X3.159, and 1003.1, and by golly failure
to provide ALL the specified services will result in no sale.