Re: RT patch acceptance

[Brian O'Mahoney]

Also, the u-kernel has been tried, MACH & Chorus, and even the real
NT core, as opposed to the Win32 API skin, and has not worked well
yet.

James Bruce wrote:
> Nick Piggin wrote:
> 
>> But nobody has been able to say why a single kernel is better than a
>> nanokernel.
> 
> 
> I think it's a bit more like you haven't realized the answer when people
> gave it, so let me try to be more clear.  It's purely a matter of effort
> - in general it's far easier to write one process than two communicating
> processes.  As far as APIs, with a single-kernel approach, an RT
> programmer just has to restrict the program to calling APIs known to be
> RT-safe (compare with MT-safe programming).  In a split-kernel approach,
> the programmer has to write RT-kernel support for the APIs he wants to
> use (or beg for them to be written).  Most programmers would much rather
> limit API usage than implement new kernel support themselves.
> 
> A very common RT app pattern is to do a bunch of non-RT stuff, then
> enter an RT loop.  For an example from my work, a robot control program
> starts by reading a bunch of configuration files before it starts doing
> anything requiring deadlines, then enters the RT control loop.  Having
> to read all the configuration in a separate program and then marshall
> the data over to an RT-only process via file descriptors is quite a bit
> more effort.  I guess some free RT-nanokernels might/could support
> non-RT to RT process migration, or better messaging, but there's
> additional programming effort (and overhead) that wasn't there before.
> In general an app may enter and exit RT sections several times, which
> really makes a split-kernel approach less than ideal.
> 
> An easy way to visualize the difference in programming effort for the
> two approaches is to take your favorite threaded program and turn it
> into one with separate processes that only communicate via pipes.  You
> can *always* do this, its just very much more painful to develop and
> maintain.  Your stance of "nobody can prove why a split-kernel won't
> work" is equivalent to saying "we don't ever really need threads, since
> processes suffice".  That's true, but only in the same way that I don't
> need a compilier or a pre-existing operating system to write an
> application.
> 
>  - Jim Bruce
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> 

-- 
mit freundlichen Grüßen, Brian.

Dr. Brian O'Mahoney
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