Re: [Nmh-workers] Locking In Scripts and nmh Locking

[norm]

Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> writes:
>>>But then you say (in another message) that you want nmh programs to not
>>>deadlock under our hypothetical nmhlock program
>>
>>If I said something that amounted to that, it's not what I meant. I don't know
>>what I might have said that led you to believe that's what I meant. Which is 
>>not
>>to say that, in my confusion, I said nothing that amounted to that.
>
>I guess I was thinking that based on this message:
>
>http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/nmh-workers/2012-04/msg00111.html
>
>I mean, why would you want nmh programs to not deadlock under mhlock unless
>you wanted to run them?  That's where things get tricky.

Yep. I said that. But I no longer know why, if I ever did know.

>>I also admit that I don't understand why nmh locking has to be so complicated,
>>but I leave that issue to my betters.
>
>Well, it's just as complicated as it needs to be.  The issue is that the
>sequences files and context files get modified a lot, so those need to
>be locked.  And (generally) sequence files are per-folder.  So I'm not
>sure how you could make locking work and not make any simpler than
>it is now (unless you wanted to do the equivalent of a biglock; we don't
>want that, do we?).

I don't know why we don't want that. But there is no reason why I need to know.
At this point I retire from this locking discussion with the hope that I don't
gag on all the feet in my mouth.

    Norman Shapiro