Are Processes Objects? [djg14]

[David Garfield]

"> " is Dennis
"> > " is me

> > I feel that each process should provide drivers for 0 or more classes,
> > provide 0 or more public functions, and optionally include a startup
> > and shutdown functions.
>
> Good - a constructor and destructor possibly, plus some "main" function for
> the process to begin execution.  Then, if you wrote a C program, the main()
> function would map directly to this function...can anyone think of a better
> name than "main" though?

Well, actually I was thinking that main would be invoked from the
startup function in a C program.  The startup and shutdown functions
where not a constructor and destructor, becuase the process isn't an
object.  Object constructors and destructors would be part of the
class definitions.

> > Among other things, I am not sure what a process object would do with
> > methods to itself besides what I just said, and I don't see any of
> > what I already said requiring the process itself to receive messages
> > to its management object.
>
> In some cases, it would be nice for a process to let other processes access
> it.  I've been thinking device drivers almost need to be processes, and if
> they were objects their methods would be their interface.  Beyond this, only
> a few real applications would need a process interface, like database servers
> and so on.  In most cases, a process would need its "main" function and not
> much else in its external interface though.

But what you saying is that the only way to link one process to
another is by one of them BEING an object.  My point was that IMHO a
process is not an object but a collection of zero or more classes.
Thus, the process is the drivers.  So, for the serial port objects,
one process defines the serial port class, for which two objects are
created (assuming you have two serial ports).  Most processes will
probably define some classes and create objects of these classes, if
nothing else just to defines their user interface stuff.

> 		Dennis

David
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