local and remote cpu resources and the acme model of interaction

[Dave Edmondson davided@sco.com]

something that i've been puzzling about over the weekend:  in the
original plan9 papers terminals are described as (my words) `a machine
which runs the window system and the editor'.  cpu servers are used
for compiling (and the like).  other people have noted that they run
mail notification programs on their terminals, and so it seems that
terminals are used to offload user interaction and possibly user
notification from the cpu servers, which are used for more
computationally intensive tasks.

now there is acme.  acme includes an editor, it is a window system,
and the mail component does notification.  if i hit `mk' in the right
place in acme it will (perhaps) cause the compiler to run.

where should acme be run ?  if i run it on the terminal, then i end up
compiling there.  if i run it on the cpu server, then the server is
doing a lot of the little jobs that the terminal was so good at.

perhaps, given the rising power of the terminals, this is now a moot
point - i would guess that an r4000 is capable of running the compiler
when necessary (even if it only has a relatively slow connection to
the fileserver), but then when would i use the cpu server ?  and,
perhaps more importantly, how does it fit into acme's model of
interaction ?

just the ramblings of an idle mind (whilst digging my garden as it
happens).

dave.