🚀 go-pugleaf

> Another case peculiar to Unix systems is VFORK. Why duplicate
> the whole address space when the most likely thing to do next
> is EXEC, which will clobber the space you just copied?

Please, not "to Unix systems" but "to Berklix systems".  The vast majority
of Unix systems do not have vfork.  Even a lot of Unix systems with well-
designed virtual-memory systems lack vfork:  there is no intrinsic reason
why a plain, ordinary fork has to copy the whole address space.  It has to
*look* that way to the program, but with a modicum of cooperation from the
memory-management hardware, that's easy enough.  Even the Berklix manuals
warn you that vfork is a temporary kludge around implementation difficulties,
not a permanent part of the system.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry