[cap-talk] controversial article

[Mark Miller]

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Karp, Alan H <alan.karp at hp.com> wrote:

>  MarkM wrote:
>
>
>
> While it is true that the infinite loop example only applies within a vat,
> E's distributed semantics require unbounded message buffering in the same
> sense in which its local semantics requires unbounded heap and stack.
> Unbounded buffering requirements do not normally prevent a protocol from
> claiming "liveness", FWIW.
>
>  Does that mean buffering on the sender side is better for defensive
> correctness?
>
yes. Similarly, and more practically, bounding the receiver side buffer to a
memory budget specific to a given sender, and doing sender side buffering
when exceeding that limit is better... But one must be careful to account
not only for the messages themselves, but also all the other bookkeeping
memory that one side of a connection can force the other side to use. This
harkens back to Shap's criticism of membranes -- there are no good answers
to who pays for the memory. My guess is that Shap's "good" here probably
translates into a defensive correctness requirement (and therefore
inability) for normal uses of membranes.

-- 
Text by me above is hereby placed in the public domain

   Cheers,
   --MarkM
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