Re: Resource revocation

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.arch.embedded, comp.realtime
Subject	Re: Resource revocation
Date	2013-07-25 23:37 -0700
Organization	Nightsong/Fort GNOX
Message-ID	<7xbo5pbzdy.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> (permalink)
References	<ksrtvv$kmp$1@speranza.aioe.org> <7xehame7ut.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <kss75t$dgh$1@speranza.aioe.org> <7xr4emjbaq.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <kst0gh$208$2@speranza.aioe.org>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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Don Y <this@isnotme.com> writes:
> On the other hand, it might be acceptable for the task to *think*
> it still owns the resource and have it "waste" CPU acting on that
> misbelief.

This type of program typically doesn't compute very much.  It's either
acting on some message, or sleeping til the next message arrives.

I think overall it's preferable to not confuse the issue by moving stuff
around between processes without the processes knowing.  The resource
should be under control of one process, and relinquished by 1) sending a
message asking for the process to give it back; or 2) killing the
process, preferably with automatic cleanup actions when the process
dies.

> Everything in my system is message based ... Signals
> are even delivered in this way

OK, the usual sense of signals that I thought was reflected in your code
sample, is basically delivering a simulated hardware interrupt to a
running task, so it needs locks, critical sections and all that messy
stuff.  

> Yes.  Everything has the weight of a system call, effectively.

In the case of your lawn sprinkler application I think that is fine.
IMHO in this day and age, it's only worth dealing with low-level
approaches if you're doing hard-real-time or have to run on 10-cent
processors or something like that.

> Well, the "resource" in question has already been passed along
> to someone else.  

Yeah, the way I'm imagining, I wouldn't do it that way, as described
above.

> So, its more a question of do you let the task continue to consume
> *other* resources in the mistaken belief that it still owns the
> significant resource?

In this case I'd say just kill the task, so it can restart in a
completely known state.  Admittedly I am somewhat under the influence of
Erlang right now, and this is a core tenet of Erlang philosophy.

> Yes, but this approach assumes there are no associated activities
> that must be unwound.  I.e., that everything the task has done
> can be discarded and recreated.

The task would periodically post updates saying how far it has gotten
(how much water has been dispensed, or whatever).  When it's killed and
restarts, it can take up where it left off.

> Imagine if the task is machining a piece of metal and the resource
> that it wanted has been withdrawn. 

I don't understand this example--what would the "resource" be?  In
general terms I'd say kill the process and let the crash handler park
the tool in a safe position.  But in this machining example, I'm
imagining some kind of low level PID loop that would keep checking a
flag to know if it had to bail out.  In either case, the idea is to get
to a place where you can restart later.

> The "advantage" to an asynchronous notification *like* a signal is
> it gives the developer as much rope as he wants

The only reason for such "rope" is to push the limits of the hardware
because more modular approaches are too slow or whatever.  Computers are
ridiculously powerful these days, so unless you're doing something
extremely demanding (basically something that would have been impossible
or economically unfeasible 10 years ago), seeking "rope" is probably a
sign of doing something wrong.

> The problem lies in the nature of asynchronous events and how
> we think of them as developers.

Right, they are messy and it's preferable to avoid them.  E.g. by using
message passing instead of signals.

> The other half of this is that it is REALLY HARD to test for these
> things.  You can't just inject an asynchronous event at every possible
> place where it could occur and verify proper operation.  :(

You should probably look into model-checking tools if you absolutely
have to pursue this approach.  Dawson Engler's papers on using such
tools to find crash bugs in Unix file systems might be of interest.

Actually Tom Hawkins' "ImProve" program might be of some use to check
that you got all your watering stuff right, in terms of turning correct
combinations of valves on and off etc., if you're interested in
experimenting with high-tech approaches.  I haven't used it but have
been interested in it for a while:

   https://github.com/tomahawkins/improve/wiki/ImProve

I did play around with Atom (a hard realtime DSL written by the same
guy) and I think the approach is pretty powerful.

> I really dislike telling people they "can't run with scissors" --
> since those folks who are adept at doing so shouldn't be penalized by
> the "clumsiness" of those who can't!

Even someone capable of running with scissors without stabbing himself
every time shouldn't do it outside of some dire emergency.  

In this watering application you have (presumably) rather loose timing
constraints, and roughly unlimited CPU resources.  So I think you can do
fine using safe, simple methods instead of running with scissors.

Thread

Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-25 12:23 -0700
  Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-25 12:51 -0700
    Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-25 15:00 -0700
      Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-25 19:38 -0700
        Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-25 22:12 -0700
          Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-25 23:37 -0700
            Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 01:13 -0700
              Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-26 02:48 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 04:19 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-26 09:46 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 10:21 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-26 19:30 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 11:56 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-26 20:08 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 13:11 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-26 12:31 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-27 11:08 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@technologyhighland.invalid> - 2013-07-29 09:16 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-29 10:22 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 11:22 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-27 08:56 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Hans-Bernhard Bröker <HBBroeker@t-online.de> - 2013-07-26 19:25 +0200
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-26 10:51 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-26 19:21 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-26 11:50 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-26 19:42 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 12:43 -0700
                Does the Buddha have a real time nature? ;)  (was Resource revocation) Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2013-07-26 17:06 -0400
                Re: Does the Buddha have a real time nature? ;)  (was Resource revocation) Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 17:12 -0700
                Re: Does the Buddha have a real time nature? ;)  (was Resource revocation) Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 09:44 +0100
                Re: Does the Buddha have a real time nature? ;)  (was Resource revocation) Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 09:45 +0100
                Re: Does the Buddha have a real time nature? ;)  (was Resource revocation) Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-27 12:28 -0700
                Re: Does the Buddha have a real time nature? ;)  (was Resource revocation) Hans-Bernhard Bröker <HBBroeker@t-online.de> - 2013-07-27 14:11 +0200
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 12:40 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-26 21:29 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 13:52 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-26 22:55 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 17:22 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 10:02 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-27 09:29 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 18:20 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-27 12:48 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 22:57 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-27 16:18 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2013-07-31 16:33 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-27 22:53 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 22:42 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-27 16:41 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-27 16:49 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-28 08:39 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-27 23:11 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2013-07-31 16:15 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-08-01 00:13 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-27 15:16 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 23:05 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-27 15:37 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 23:38 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-27 16:08 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-28 01:16 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-27 18:43 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-28 09:01 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-27 15:21 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-27 23:07 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-26 12:00 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2013-07-27 16:49 +0000
                Re: Resource revocation Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2013-07-28 18:31 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-28 15:51 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2013-07-28 20:12 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-28 18:35 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2013-07-29 00:10 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 00:23 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-29 01:05 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 12:07 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-30 01:11 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 15:20 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Rob Gaddi <rgaddi@technologyhighland.invalid> - 2013-07-29 15:42 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 16:41 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-30 08:51 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-30 09:09 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-30 01:30 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-30 10:04 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-30 02:55 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-30 07:12 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-30 16:59 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-30 13:17 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-30 10:12 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-30 18:48 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-30 20:18 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-31 09:27 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation [long] Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-31 00:47 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-30 02:50 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-30 13:22 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-30 07:24 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-30 01:17 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-29 19:28 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-07-29 11:40 +0300
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 11:44 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-07-29 20:56 +0100
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 13:16 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2013-07-30 00:08 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-30 23:41 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-31 00:58 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-31 10:18 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2013-08-02 06:19 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2013-08-03 02:26 -0400
                Re: Resource revocation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-28 19:31 -0700
                Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-29 00:44 -0700
  Re: Resource revocation Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2013-07-25 22:42 -0400
    Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-25 22:12 -0700
  Re: Resource revocation "Boudewijn Dijkstra" <sp4mtr4p.boudewijn@indes.com> - 2013-07-31 13:41 +0200
    Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-31 07:51 -0700
      Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-31 08:07 -0700
        Re: Resource revocation Anders.Montonen@kapsi.spam.stop.fi.invalid - 2013-07-31 15:55 +0000
          Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-07-31 10:18 -0700
      Re: Resource revocation "Boudewijn Dijkstra" <sp4mtr4p.boudewijn@indes.com> - 2013-08-01 14:42 +0200
        Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-01 14:34 -0700
      Re: Resource revocation upsidedown@downunder.com - 2013-08-02 09:08 +0300
        Re: Resource revocation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-02 07:26 -0700

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