On 13 Oct 2005 09:54:44 -0700, Paul Rubin <http> wrote: > Jorgen Grahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
