🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <FAT.95Sep25135716@fat.cnit.nsk.su>, fat@cnit.nsk.su (Dmitry V.
Irtegov) wrote:

> My code does socket library calls each three-four lines.

Is every single line of your code a socket call?

> With linear address space you don't need those microoptimisations at
> all.

It has nothing to do with linear address spaces (hint, the 68000 has one),
and everything to do with heap fragmentation.

> I consider myself skilled in program and algorithm design, not in
> specific kind of microoptimisation. Handles distract me from high-level
> stuff and force me to emulate missing piece of hardware.

Well, the rest of us haven't had the luxury of assuming a large backing
store on every machine out there.  That is changing, with disk space
costing $.25 a meg.

> I thought about handles more kindly untill I was forced to use them.

If you get to assume that everyone who runs your application has tons of
RAM, just lock all the handles and don't worry about it.

> From practical standpoint it goes away. VM separates data spaces of 
> different programs, so each program has to deal only with _own_ 
> fragmentation, not with system-wide one.

This is no different on a Mac; each app gets its own heap under MultiFinder.

> It decreases fragmentation
> by several orders of magnitude.

Well, fragmentation actually increases; it's just that there is so much
(virtual) memory available, that the likelyhood of not finding a large
enough free block greatly decreases.

> And for most programs
> fragmentation doesn't become an issue while copy of program is running.



> Many programs which allocate all memory they need on startup do
> not have fragmentation problem at all. 

Of course, those aren't programs that put things like windows up on
screens.  Only the most simplistic stuff doesn't have a need to use a
heap.

> but for most programs it isn't
> an issue.

Well, there are plenty of programs for the Mac that can prove you wrong.

> > One could argue that if you can delay it enough, it isn't worth the
> > additional complexity to deal with it, but that certainly wasn't true in
> > the 80s, when RAM and disk space were damn expensive.

> Well, why it wasn't fixed since then?

It's getting there.  People have this funny notion that they want their
old programs to keep running.

> > But the customers, not the programmers, get to choose (with their
> > pocketbooks) what environment they are willing to run the software on. 

> It is very complex question who choose the software and hardware.

Yup.  Tons of variables to consider.

> Mass-market is driven by marketing and advertisement, not by technology
> nor by actual needs of consumer.

Not true.  It is driven by both.  More specifically, it is driven by what
the consumer *perceives* that he needs, and that is influenced by
marketing, among other things.
-- 
        Nevin ":-)" Liber       nevin@CS.Arizona.EDU    (520) 293-2799