zz: The !@#$% forking data: General solution impossible?

[Ted Nelson <ted@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew,

The other alternative I could see would be to isolate
 what was needed: specifying some subset of data 
 that the forked processs would be working from,
 and zip its results back in later.

This is, however, sadly context-specific.  Something
 really need and general would be nice.

But that may not be possible: the results of parallel
 processes ripping through the fabric of cells in
 idiosyncratic ways could be ever so destructive.

I think this means we have to figure what sub-methods
 can be handled by what means.

Sigh.

Best, Ted


At 09:46 AM 4/2/99 +1000, you wrote:
>On Fri, Apr 02, 1999 at 08:09:42AM +0900, Ted Nelson wrote:
>> I accept that you propose that 
>> >The simplest solution is to serialise the back-end by using a
client-server
>> >architecture, such as OSMIC.
>> but that doesn't sound simple to me, it sounds like
>>  a HUGE step.
>
>Not really.  It's pretty straightforward.  It just sounds impressive.
>The alternatives are to use locking, or to just copy all the data with
>every fork (discussed below, and the least useful alternative).
>
>> What does it take 
>> 1) to give a new filehandle to the forked process?
>
>Open a new file in each forked process so they're working from different
>data sets.
>
>> andor
>> 2) to copy off the dataset?
>
>Just close the data set and ask the operating system to copy the file
>it lives in before doing the fork.  Of course, you have to decide on
>the new file names, and it will be slow and really eat disk space.
>
>Cheers,
>	*** Xanni ***
>-- 
>mailto:xanni@xxxxxxxxxx                         Andrew Pam
>http://www.xanadu.com.au/                       Chief Scientist, Xanadu
>http://www.glasswings.com.au/                   Technical Editor, Glass Wings
>http://www.sericyb.com.au/sc/                   Manager, Serious Cybernetics
>P.O. Box 26, East Melbourne VIC 8002 Australia  Phone +61 3 96511511
>
>
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Theodor Holm Nelson, Visiting Professor of Environmental Information
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