🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <44991oINNagh@keats.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca>, c2a192@ugrad.cs.ubc.ca
(Kazimir Kylheku) wrote:

> In article <nevin-2609950224340001@mac-nevin.cs.arizona.edu>,
> Nevin ":-]" Liber <nevin@CS.Arizona.EDU> wrote:
> >Again, you are flaunting your ignorance.  Every app has its own heap; this
> >kind of compaction works just fine, irregardless of the type of
> >multitasking.

> Now wait a minute. I thought we were talking about the global heap.

Nope.  We were talking about the Macintosh.  Well, maybe you were talking
about global heaps, but that makes your subject irrelevant to *all* the
newsgroups it has been crossposted to.
> 
> Speaking of applications with their own heaps, what happens if heap
> of application A is full, but application B has  "heaps" of free space?
> Doesn't sound like optimal use of a precious resource to me.

It isn't.  That was the *tradeoff* that was made.  What is your point? 
You've already argued that doing it the other way (one global heap) is far
worse.  There were three choices:  global heap, local heap, break all
existing applications.  Apple chose the least painful (local heap); that
is what good engineering is all about.  Which would you have chosen?  Any
idiot can sit around whining about the flaws of a particular
implementation (you can parrot that stuff out of books); it takes real
engineering to, after weighing all the advantages and disadvantages (and
I've yet to use a system w/o any disadvantages), come up with something
that works well.  It isn't a perfect solution, and it may not be an
optimal solution, but it is a solution that is "good enough" to work.

> Because
> you have to configure the memory partitions of programs for the expected
> peak usage, you end up wasting memory terribly.

Yup.  Again, this isn't particularly new to anyone who has been using a
Mac since MultiFinder came on the scene (well over half a decade).  Of
course, if you'd actually read up on the Mac once in a while instead of
criticising something you know very little about, you probably wouldn't
appear so ignorant.

> That deserves a thread
> of its own, though.

Whatever turns you on.  Personally, I don't find it a very interesting
topic.  It's been discussed to death here before (not that that has ever
stopped you before).  Where tradeoffs are concerned, there are no answers
that are panaceas to everyone's problems.  If you have a better solution
that would have kept old apps working and not require any additional
hardware, then by all means post it.  Better yet, implement it, and make
your fortune.
-- 
        Nevin ":-)" Liber       nevin@CS.Arizona.EDU    (520) 293-2799