[unios] Re: Priorities

[Anders Petersson]

From: Anders Petersson <anders.petersson@mbox320.swipnet.se>

At 19:57 1998-12-03 +0100, you wrote:
>From: Pieter Dumon <Pieter.Dumon@rug.ac.be>
>
>> Yes, performance on fifth place. Computers get faster all the time. The
>> faster they get, the more willing are people to trade speed for other
>> advantages. Like high flexibility and security.
>
>This is true, but depends on the sort of user:
>Office PC's and PC's needn't be fast. Most of the time, they only run 1 or
>two applications. Control software (for industrial processes etc) needs to
>get high priority, but this doesn't mean the OS must be fast. But home
>users and power users will really want a fast system. 

High speed is a demand that some peolpe have, yes. This is a problem with
'the OS for everyone' - should you design for the most demanding use in
each category, or the average demand, or by some other measure? Making an
OS with speed as a high priority is hard (I don't want to say it's
impossible, never say never), without sacrificing something else. This is
what we have to agree on - what are our goals?

>> But we should take
>> the attitude of first constructing a technologically consistent system, and
>> then see how it can be made fast (even if a good construction should be
>> pretty fast already). The opposite would be to first make a fast system,
>> and afterwards begin to look at how the system could be given the other
>> properties we want it to have. That's simply th wrong way to go, and that
>> is why I did not put it on the primary goals list.
>
>Off course, but I think if you implement an architecturally good OS, it
>will be fast, stable and secure whatsoever.

That depends. If you make the architecture with speed as your priority one,
you may define it as good. I would probably not think the same. 

I also think Beholder said a good thing... it *would* be harder to make the
OS less dependant on a specific hardware when designing for speed. If
machine specific optimizations is all that you require, then fine. But just
that doesn't give speed the right of the 2nd priority place. Optimizations
are really not as important as having a secure, flexible and well designed
system, are they?

binEng

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