From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] vfork and paging
From: "rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>
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Date: Mon,  1 Oct 2001 08:21:30 -0400
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> the BSD approach is poor.  unfortunately, people mimic it.
> i can only assume that one or more textbooks wrote it up.

At the time, people confused the whole idea of processes with
the Unix implementation.  The result was a deep-seated belief,
still rampant in the minds of the impressionable and the rigid,
that processes are inherently expensive.   Lightweight process
and threads grew out of that misconception.  One of the very
first things I measured when the early Plan 9 kernel was running
- and those who know me know I'm not a big measurement
nut - was the time it took to create a new process, so I could
demonstrate to anyone who would listen (there were only a
few) that processes were not inherently expensive.

Our approach was different, as Plan 9 users will appreciate.
Processes, rather than being a scourge to be avoided or
perhaps hidden behind an advertising adjective, are the
solution to many a systems problem and should be embraced.

-rob