[Sussex] INSIDE: A daemons story

[Steve Dobson]

Hi Mark

> From: Mark Olliver 
> Sent: 23 August 2002 13:34

Strange, you sent just after lunch, our works MTA store it
for me at 21:10 - I wonder why it took so long :-/

> I think that is probably a good idea, however, would it not
> be better to design it from scratch to be all those things
> or to be able to handle them if not use them straight away,
> as this would save work in the future.

I both agree with you and disagree, a sort of Me, Myself
and INSIDE.

<sound-effect music="theme-soap.mp3">
  Confused you will be, after the next episode of Soap.
</sound>

First the part of me that disagrees with you:
---------------------------------------------

Multi-threaded programs (apps, servers, kernels) are complex
beasts.  Data has to be divided global and thread specific,
and the global data protected from concurrent updates.

This is a lot of work, and if we never need a multi-threaded
server a complete waste of time and effort.

This is the view of the eXtreme Programmers.

Now the part of me that agrees with you:
----------------------------------------

Programs should be adaptable and work the way the user
wants them to work.  Some sites may want a dedicated 
INSIDE server, others where INSIDE traffic is light the 
inetd way is better.

Putting it all together.
------------------------

In effect I am doing a bit of both.  I have/will be separating
the data into global and thread specific blocks; but I will not
be putting exclusion locks on the global blocks to protected
against concurrent updates.

In a sense I am just deferring the work until it is needed
(and idea used to extreme in XP [pardon the pun - but I guess
that is where they get the name from].  I will be doing just
enough now.

My first three rules in programming:
    First get you program to work.
    Then get it to work better.
    Finally get it to work faster.

Steve