Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Load control and intelligence in schedulers
Message-ID: <4451@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Oct-84 19:06:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4451
Posted: Sat Oct 13 19:06:52 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 19:06:52 EDT
References: <151@desint.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 13

The problem with being smart about giving higher priority to processes
that do terminal i/o is that all sorts of interesting programs start
sprouting unnecessary terminal i/o.  I know of one large, hard-crunching
compiler [name deleted to protect the guilty] which put out a NUL to
the terminal each time it read a line of source, to keep its priority
nice and high.  Argh.

I'm not saying it can't be done well, just that care is needed.  Terminal
input should be considered much more significant than output, for purposes
of scheduling.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry