🚀 go-pugleaf

To be brief, my idea is something of a blend of the Orca method (which
has some problems) and the normal GS/OS method (which is not user 
configurable in general).

Start off with a SYSCMD like file somewhere, probably in the $home.  When
the system starts up, it can read this file and hash the various commands
in the table for nice quick lookup.

A small modification to rexit() is required: it would call a kernel/shell
routine which would look up the filename and see if it is to be restartable
or not.  If it is marked as restartable, then it exits with the proper
GS/OS QuitGS bits set.  Otherwise, it exits as non-restartable.  If
the filename or config file is not found, it would exit as restartable.

The beauty of this setup is that it circumvents the Orca problem: programs
which should not be restartable, because they assign constants to variables
at compile time.  If the program doesn't explicitly call rexit(), it will
exit() as normal.

Now, is this important enough to be configurable?  I for one know that
since I have plenty of memory, I can leave everything restartable.  Of
course, I suppose that I could run out of stack space pretty quickly
that way...

To make this work for many different users, the shell would probably have
to be the one to support it.  

Potential drawbacks: 

- Slower startup time, more memory used for resident hash table

     shouldn't matter, both should be pretty minimal.

- Programs would have to be recompiled with the new rexit().

     not a problem: old programs will still behave as they do now,
     as the old rexit just exits with the restart flag set.  Of course,
     this could cause some confusion among the users, but I think it 
     is worth the potential hassle.

- It will take time to implement when the time could be spent on other
more valuable things.

     Dunno, how long would this take to write?

So, is it worth adding?  Comments anyone?
-- 
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|          James Brookes            | Inet: bb252@cleveland.freenet.edu |
|``What, me worry?'' - A. E. Neuman |   jamesb@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu |
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