Re: [RFD] Combined fork-exec syscall.

From: Jakob Oestergaard <jakob@unthought.net>
To: "Måns Rullgård" <mru@users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: Mark Grosberg <mark@nolab.conman.org>,
	Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFD] Combined fork-exec syscall.
Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 15:14:34 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20030501131433.GH14372@unthought.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <yw1xptn7z9m6.fsf@zaphod.guide>

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 03:36:17AM +0200, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> Mark Grosberg <mark@nolab.conman.org> writes:
...
> > But yeah, basically, something similar to NT's CreateProcess(). For the
> > cases where the one-step process creation is sufficient.
> 
> Is that the call that takes dozens of parameters?  Copying :-) that
> is, IMHO, straight against the UNIX philosophy.

I agree with Måns completely.

CreateProcess() is *horrible*.  It takes 10 arguments, several of them
being pointers to structures.  Ugh!

Besides, the CreateProcessAsUser() call (which takes 13 arguments IIRC)
demonstrates why such all-in-one-and-a-kitchen-sink calls are
fundamentally flawed.

In the few cases where they do not demand unnecessary arguments, they
simply lack the functionality that is actually needed.

I would argue that any time spent on replicating such monsters in Linux
would be far better spent optimizing the basic calls
(exec/fork/dup/close/fcntl/...) instead.

That was my 0.02 Euro on that one.

-- 
................................................................
:   jakob@unthought.net   : And I see the elder races,         :
:.........................: putrid forms of man                :
:   Jakob Østergaard      : See him rise and claim the earth,  :
:        OZ9ABN           : his downfall is at hand.           :
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