Standards Update, IEEE 1003.4: Real-time Extensions

[henry at utzoo.uucp]

From: henry at utzoo.uucp

>From: Jeffrey S. Haemer <jsh at usenix.org>
>[threads vs signals] In fact,
>I think the early, simpler versions of signal() look a lot like what's
>needed (around V6 or so)...

Actually, it can be simpler yet, as Waterloo's Thoth system showed.
Subject to some sort of suitable protections (perhaps including a way
to ignore signals), when a thread receives a signal, it drops dead.
No signal handlers or blocking.  If you want some sort of recovery
action, have another thread waiting for the first one to die:  it has
access to all the first thread's data, so it can do whatever recovery
is appropriate.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu

Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 96