deterministic behavior (was Re: [self-interest] simplicity)
Kyle Hayes
kyle at silverbeach.net
Mon Jun 28 16:27:54 UTC 2004
On Sunday 27 June 2004 22:54, Toby Ovod-Everett wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 08:20:43PM -0700, Michael Latta wrote:
> > If I can paraphrase your position:
> >
> > Reference counting is more deterministic when releasing resources that
> > have semantics beyond bits in memory.
>
> [Parrot notes]
Somewhat OT, but I believe that there is a blog entry or small whitepaper
floating around on the Internet somewhere that shows that file operations
are rarely as deterministic on Unix systems as people believe.
Particularly close vs. file data being flushed out of per-process buffers
etc.
So, while the language may make attempts to be deterministic, the OS may
foil them. If we all (language designers) try to keep everything fully
deterministic and the OS people pull the rug out from underneath us....
The point is that OSes and even processors are moving toward models that
have less deterministic behavior, not more (see the IA-64 programming
model for just how non-deterministic things are becoming). Languages
need to plan for future use. If deterministic behavior is going to become
harder and harder to get, then, like multithreading, it may be something
that programmers need to keep in mind when programming.
For now most systems have some level of deterministic behavior, but it
isn't something I think will last out the decade.
Best,
Kyle
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