Let My Terminal Go

[Jorgen Grahn]

On 13 Oct 2005 09:54:44 -0700, Paul Rubin <http> wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <jgrahn-nntq at algonet.se> writes:
>> It depends on what you mean by expensive -- web servers can fork for each
>> HTTP request they get, in real-world scenarios, and get away with it.
>
> This is OS dependent.  Forking on Windows is much more expensive than
> forking on Linux.

Forking, to me, means doing what the Unix fork(2) system call does. Since
AFAIK there is no corresponding Win32 call, I assumed the original poster
was on Unix.

But now I see that he didn't use the word "fork"; someone else in the thread
did ...

You are correct, of course; the cost of spawning processes varies a lot
between OSes, and it's distinctly higher on Windows compared to Unixes in
general and Linux in particular.

(BTW, Eric Raymond argues that low-cost spawning is an important
characteristic of an OS: see
  http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch03s01.html#id2892171 )

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <jgrahn@       Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/                algonet.se>   R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!