MacOS is cooperative.[....]

By comparison Windows NT [is] pre-emptively multitasked.[....]

What this means is that on the Mac a single poorly-written process can lock up the system.

Note that a single program that isn't even very poorly written can quite effectively lock up Windows NT. All you need is something that takes up a lot of CPU. Designing a complex program such that it will never use "too much CPU" is extremely difficult. This is a problem that is best solved by the pre-emptively multitasking operating system. Unfortunately, WindowsNT "solves" this problem so badly that it really isn't solved at all.

Once a CPU hog starts running, WindowsNT manages to let other things run but at such a slow pace that it can takes hours to simply request that the system be shut down. Finding and stopping the hog is unthinkable. Anything not via the desktop is useless because response is so slow that time-outs are all that can be had.

So one badly written process probably can't completely lock up NT as far as scheduling is concerned, but the scheduling is not good enough for this to have much pracitcal meaning.

And now, back to discussions remotely related to Perl... :)

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

In reply to Bad multitasking (RE: MacPerl???) by tye
in thread MacPerl??? by curtisb

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