Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 15:04:30 11/10/00
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On November 10, 2000 at 15:19:53, Bruce Moreland wrote: <snip> >The typical engine tries to be general-case, because it has to handle not only >special cases, but transitions <snip> We need to talk a lot more about this. I'll get back to it. >I think that if anything is "wrong" with this it's that you can handle the >different cases in one engine by detecting special material and positional >cases. That way you don't have to write several engines, you can reuse the 99% >of the stuff that's the same. <snip> Yes! An awakened module might very well confiscate and use routines which were already on RAM, as part of the main program. It is a matter of the Module's "borrowing" them. [interrupts and jumps into and out of loops, etc.] On the other hand, duplicates of such routines could be stored on the hard drive as part of an inactive module package and then loaded into RAM when needed. Or some routines might be stored on the hard drive and then as many copies as needed copied to the appropriate places in RAM. It is a tradeoff: The disadvantages and complexities of "borrowing" versus time lost [or other disadvantages] in loading duplicate routines which are already present on RAM. And it would also be necessary for the programmer to work out ways for the "borrowed" routines to be re-assigned back to the main program after the module no longer needs them. And there might be sharing of any such routines, etc., etc., etc. . . .
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