Re: Derivative effects.
On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 01:44:02PM +0100, Thorsten Haude wrote:
>
> * Haines Brown wrote (2004-01-25 13:21):
> >I kind'a miss DOS.
>
> With a decent shell it might have been just endurable.
Like 4/dos?
The radical libertarian in me enjoys the concept of an O/S where user
apps can trash the system. Protection faults just seem anti-democratic.
I'd love to see a modern "equal-opportunity" O/S :-)
On the subject of operating systems and political systems...
A fellow I worked with at Microsoft named Michael Parkes [1] (brilliant
fellow) was explaining locking mechanisms in heap allocators to me.
The NT heap is democratic -- it tries to be fair. The first waiter is
the first to be signaled.
His replacement heap, which scales on SMP like hell and is used in SQL
Server, is only "stochastically fair" -- it makes no promises of
fairness. When the lock is free -- this is his words -- he wakes 'em
all up and says "Have at it boys! First one in wins!" There are no
guarantees that you'll ever get the lock at all! It's not democratic at
all.
I forget the details, but it was powerful lesson to me. Brilliant guy.
Reply to: