On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 01:04:41PM -0500, Brian Paulsen wrote:
> I'm not sure you really want to do that.  One strange seg fault could crash
> the whole system.

This is certainly true.

>                     A better approach is to have the brains of the operation
> be a separate process that each of the bots communicate with.  This would
> allow you to put the bot brains on to a separate machine (for CPU reasons)
> and then divide the bots up on to other machines.  If one bot crashes, you
> don't lose 7 others along with it.

I wish to ensure a minimal response time, even taking into account the
fact that all data will be piped through a single process. If the
slave is on a different machine than the brain, the one layer removed
that may improve stability, sacrifices efficiency and responsiveness.

I don't need stability, if the process doesn't crash.

Also, the slaves will not have sufficient intelligence to function on
their own. If the brain segfaults, the clients are left to wander on
their current course anyways. An elaborate mechanism could be constructed
to allow the brain to 'resume' control of the clients... but I would
prefer to squash segfaults, than spend time attempting to prepare for
all eventualities.

I intend for my attempt to succeed, because it does boldly accept
challenges that have previously imposed restrictions, and twist them
into an advantage.

I also intend to have the bot teams run simulations for several
hundred hours between themselves before daring to introduce them to the
INL. :-)

> Also, you then don't have to worry about people using global variables.
> Cleaning up the code is going to be a major project and really isn't worth
> it.

Most of the code is actually quite simple. I plan to have the basic
functions complete in only a few hours of work. It won't be today, but
we'll see about Wednesday.

I will make every attempt to ensure that the results of the effort can
be re-used by others.

mark

-- 
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