Charles Curley (12019-12-02): > But actually having multiple copies of the same > program is a waste of memory space, and possibly of swap space. This is > why we write re-entrant code.
This is not true with modern operating systems: code and read-only data are shared between instances. If the application is correctly programmed, the only variable stuff will be what needs to really be variable, and having several instances has no extra costs. (And if the application is not correctly programmed, it will waste memory even if it has only one instance.) Web browser and other big applications have chosen to have a single instance, which requires more complex code, in order to manage global state: cookies, configuration, etc. This was a terrible mistake, they are starting to realize it was. Regards, -- Nicolas George
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