Date: 13 Feb 2002 15:58:25 -0800 From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How do basic OS principles continue to improve? Message-ID: <d1vgd1szmm.gd1@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <20020213192510.A46224@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> References: <20020213192510.A46224@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> writes: > Since VM has been around for quite a while, and since the basic > algorithms for task scheduling, page swapping, critical sections and so > on have been around for a while as well as basic computer sci theory, > what leads to the breakthrough new designs we see in BSD? Other than > SMP? If I understand the question, I'll guess that a developer sees an existing design that looks poor, either by pure reason or by its ugliness, or by comparision of it's design or performance with a similarly-purposed design in another OS or in some research report. For example, if I was a kernel hacker, I might have done something with a report I read on a school project in which the guy had a compiler inside his kernel and had it compile optimised code as needed. I didn't see or don't remember the particular techniques he used, but I suppose it was able to avoid indirect addressing or something. He had several techniques, as I recall. He reported very significant speed-ups. (But then, I'd guess that most bottlenecks are not hampered by inefficient code as much as by inefficient algorithms, but I'd like to read his report again.) Sadly, I lost the URL a couple of years ago and a quick google didn't find it. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?d1vgd1szmm.gd1>