From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.3
Date: 2 Sep 92 19:36:57 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Sep2.101812.16584@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>In article <1992Sep2.135826.27225@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>>LAN Server will also provide your "secured file system", via the
>>HPFS386 that it ships with.  While this should be sold separately, or
>>be included, it is one feature that you wouldn't normally expect to
>>find in a LAN server, so I'm mentioning it here.
>
>NTFS is fully secured... has to be... you need that to meet C2. or does
>secured have an unusual meaning here?

Nothing against NT here.  I just wanted to point out that the LAN
Server package includes more than just the LAN server.  It also
includes HPFS386.  It's another feature that is available for a price.

>The advantage is you get a large piece of memory which is broken up
>and managed as is done by malloc.  When you're finished with the large
>piece of memory, you can free once the big piece, which can be more
>efficient depending on the nature of your allocation.
>DosAllocMem is only good to give you the big piece of memory, it does
>not manage it.
>Multiple growable heaps is a standard feature of other system too, for
>example Macs have had this feature for years.

OK, so the system memory allocate functions take a handle to a heap as
a parameter - you request a heap, and pass it to the NT equivalent of
the malloc() function for getting memory.  I can understand this.

I think it could be done via a run-time library as well, though.  But
there is some advantage to moving this into the kernel.

>>This is still being argued.  One person posted a Makefile which (using
>>some stack-killing apps that was posted) got the app to compile and
>>run fine under icc.  The problem may be a compiler not using
>>OS-features in its malloc() functions.  Wait for the final verdict
>>when the heat dies down.
>
>I would not have put that there if I did not have faith in the person
>that told me.  This person should definitely know.  I'd say who it
>was, but don't know if they want it known.

The answer has been posted.  Apparantly ICC has an optimization to
convert tail-recursive subroutines into iterative routines.  So the
stack never expanded.  The unused variables (like the array) were
deleted and the program just counted from 1 to 10.

You seem to be right here.

>>What happens when a DOS apps edits the file?  These apps typically
>>make backups.  They do it by renaming the original file and then
>>create a new file to save data into.
>>
>>What happens to the long name when this happens?
>
>Sigh... it has both a long name and a short one.
>I.E. the file has two names as a part of its attributes.
>This is not the same as a Unix link.
>The directory entry contains two names.
>I promise... Microsoft isn't stupid; NTFS is a very modern file system.

Yes, it keeps both names.  But when a DOS app doesn't update a file, but
creates a new one with the 8.3 name, NT can't assign a long name from
the 8.3, can it?

Dual names has no problems if your program updates things by
copy-file-to-backup-file, open-file, write-file, close-file.  It will
be a problem if the program does a delete-backup-file,
rename-file-to-backup-file-name, create-file, write-file, close-file.
In this case, the file being written is NOT the same file that was
there originally.  NT will no longer have the long name, because the
same file isn't being used.

I wonder what happens here.

BTW: what's the difference between one directory entry containing two
names and a hard link?

>If you can find that announcement I'd be greatly interested.
>(I'd also like to know if other things are promised.)

I'll see if ftp-os2 has it.  If they do, I'll e-mail you a copy.
-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "TELEPHONE, n.  An Invention of the devil which
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   abrogates some of the advantages of making a
 ((|,)                          disagreeable person keep his distance."
  ~|~                              --- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy