Why PalmSource May Be Right About Multitasking

[Voice_of_Reason]

Originally Posted by Voice_of_Reason

This post has been removed because of personal attacks. It's a shame because there were some interesting questions or points contained also. But we insist on respectful and polite postings, not bullying. We want to have actual adult discussions, not a 3rd grade online verbal brawl. [BobR]

TVoR, I think you understand our rules. Please follow them.

Personal attacks? Badgering? On what planet? Here's the gist of the post again:

Originally Posted by Voice_of_Reason

Beers, I don't think you understand what I'm talking about. First of all do, pre-Cobalt Palms even have true background threads for audio or do they rely (like many CLIEs) on a seperate chip for MP3 processing?

The multithreading in Cobalt is actually quite a limited way of permitting simultaneous operations to occur and/or having more than one app being open in the background. There are restrictions and memory management "issues" with what processes are permitted by those background apps. It will be interesting to see if those limitations are lifted when PalmOS is eventually ported to the Linux kernel.





I already alluded to what should be expected of a true "multitasking" OS. What Cobalt can and cannot juggle successfully is restricted by the processes + memory needed by the background app. My argument is that the Cobalt kernel and its multithreading architecture limits what developers (and users) can do from Day 1. Limitation is not A Good Thing.

Your example of receiving + answering an email is a good (realistic) example of what kind of juggling should be expexted of a PDA/Smartphone OS. But then we really have to get into a lot more detail than that to see if the Cobalt multithreading is robust enough to cut it. Say you're downloading email + also on the Internet with the broswer rendering a page and you're listening to MP3 through your headphones. First email arrives -> can you get the notification in a pop-up window in your browser or on the DIA? Assuming you can and click on it to open the email program -> does the browser keep rendering the page smoothly in the background or does everything slow to a crawl once the browser is relegated to the background? OK, so now your email program is the dominatrix app and you open the first email while the others are continuing to download. The email contains some attachments (JPEG, Word document, Excel file, PowerPoint presentation, WAV, MP3, etc) and you click on the file to view it. Does the appropriate viewer open the file seamlessly, relegating your email program to being a background thread again? Does the email downloading continue seamlessly? Does everything slow to a crawl? Are there adequate resources available to open a JPEG? Word document? Excel file? PowerPoint presentation? WAV? MP3? Suppose you want to reply to that first email and insert an attachment (JPEG, Word document, Excel file, PowerPoint presentation, WAV, MP3, etc). Can you do that?

What happens if you're doing some research on the Internet while simultaneously downloading email. Open apps: browser (background), email program (background) and Word-compatible text editor (foreground). You're copying + pasting text from the webpages into your text editor. The browser crashes. Does that take down your email program with it? If you also lose your email program, is the crash a graceful exit, or do you lose everything that was already downloaded? A hard reset at that point would be not A Good Thing.

You're recording a video with the digital camcorder. Can you receive email in the background?

You're receiving email and open the first message. Can you dictate a reply and send the recorded WAV or MP3 recording as an attachment as the downloading continues? [As an aside, iRiver MP3 players are capable of recording voice and line-in input as MP3 convertible files. Does Palm have this ability and if not can PalmSource add it ASAP?]

Just a few examples of what I think is reasonable to expect from a next-generation PDA/Smartphone OS.

TVoR

So Cobalt has the potential to switch quickly with current ARM processors. Great. But how many processes are permitted to exist at the same time? How many applications can run within this framework with the system remaining STABLE? I gave just a few examples above of what I feel are reasonable expectations of a modern PDA/Smartphone OS. Can Cobalt do the things listed above? This is the kind of practical OS functionality users want to hear about. Nanosecond latencies in switching between processes + threads in Cobalt is a empty boast if a) your number of processes are very limited and b) there are inadequate resources apportioned to individual applications to permit them to actually function when relegated to the background.

I hope you're not going to suggest that you can't answer those questions because no Cobalt-optimized apps yet exist to test these interactions.


You claim that "One of the things we expect to do with the Rome project is to flesh out our new application concepts and start exposing some of them to third party developers. It is too early for me to say much about this, but I am heavily involved in the development side of that effort, and... oh man, I think it is really going to be cool." I'd be happy to just see a bug-free version of PalmOS 5 that doesn't choke on NVFS, telephony, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc and has a modern suite of apps (reliable backup app, full featured media player, full featured browser, stable email program, Picsel Viewer +/- Repligo, full featured file manager (McFile/FileZ/FileMan), etc.) in the ROM. The fact that after 8 or 9 years all I can currently buy is a PalmOS PDA with buggy, hacked-up PalmOS 5 doesn't bode well for PalmSource's ability to deliver on these grandiose promises.


TVoR

Are these questions "badgering" the witness? Do they qualify as "attacks"?

"You're out of order. This whole court's out of order!"

[TVoR -- Remember that we welcome all viewpoints, but how you present them is important. A belligerent, mocking or bullying tone is likely to cause a post to be moderated, especially if you single out a particular person. Even if there's good stuff in it, or if it's "sort of/kind of nice" like this new version of this post. This will stand, but remember TVoR, you have a track record now, and even borderline posts may be deleted on a whim at any time, without explanation. The friendly nature and style of our discussions is more important to us than a few comments here and there.

As to your thoughts apart from the multitasking discussion, we got your point. You think PalmOS5 (Garnet) is a mess and needs to be fixed before moving on. And you don't think Cobalt can live up to necessary standards. Okay, we get it.

As for the end of this post which I assume is aimed at Dianne, remember, she is a participant at MobileRead just like you. And we will do our best to protect the rights of any of our participants to be in a discussion without a headache. Unlike you, she has been straightforward and open and informative, not badgering. She has no obligation to respond to any of your challenges, and if she chooses to ignore your prodding post completely maybe it's because you didn't address the topic in a way that justifies a response, or was worthy of one.

Do not "plead ignorance." You most certainly know exactly what you are doing when you post, and you know the standards we intend to uphold. Play nice. Play by the rules. It's better for all of us. And, in addition, you'll have a lot more credibility with regard to your opinions.

As I said, you have previously shown a propensity to cross the line, so if you even get close to the line, I'm not going to stress out about what to do, or how to keep any good points you make. It's much easier to delete and be done with it. You have been warned. Why fight it? Please, just play nice.

BobR
]

[johnsoax]

How many email programs anywhere tell you that you have new messages before it is done downloading it? My Desktops don't, why should my PDA?

[Voice_of_Reason]

"This will stand, but remember TVoR, you have a track record now, and even borderline posts may be deleted on a whim at any time, without explanation."

- That's one of the saddest statements I've ever seen on ANY discussion site, anywhere. I hope you're not an American.

TVoR.

[Voice_of_Reason]

Originally Posted by johnsoax

How many email programs anywhere tell you that you have new messages before it is done downloading it? My Desktops don't, why should my PDA?

I use Outlook and it notifies you when you have new mail.

[TadW]

Originally Posted by Voice_of_Reason

"This will stand, but remember TVoR, you have a track record now, and even borderline posts may be deleted on a whim at any time, without explanation."

- That's one of the saddest statements I've ever seen on ANY discussion site, anywhere. I hope you're not an American.

TVoR.

Now what, transferring the bashing from PalmSource to all Americans?

[TadW]

Originally Posted by johnsoax

How many email programs anywhere tell you that you have new messages before it is done downloading it? My Desktops don't, why should my PDA?

John, if you used the IMAP protocol instead of POP3, that should be possible. IMAP is a server-side solution where you don't have to worry about permanently downloading messages - the messages stay on your e-mail server; plus by default, IMAP only downloads e-mail message headers, and not the entire message, unless you select individual messages.

[volwrath]

It looks like Palm has given up on Cobalt link

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by volwrath

It looks like Palm has given up on Cobalt link

It will be at least 18 months (more realistically: 2 years) from now before any actual PalmLinux devices hit the market - and that's just assuming that everything goes as smoothly as planned, which they rarely do in projects of this size and scope. Question is: what will happen to OS5 Garnet in the meantime?

[frauen1]

True, except with Palm OS 5 they replaced the Kadak kernal with their own, so they could have supported multitasking.

Originally Posted by hacker

Palmsource didn't decide to nix multitasking from their OS... they were limited BY LICENSE from exposing more than 1 thread to the OS from the underlying kernel (they licensed the AMX kernel from an embedded company called KADAK in the early Palm days when they were still called 3Com, and kept with that single-thread model through 3 other kernel rewrites that they undertook).

The terms and conditions of that license specifically state that Palm may not expose the API for creating/manipulating tasks within the OS. If you need access to these calls you need to contact Kadak at (604) 734-2796, or visit their website at http://www.kadak.com

So they could have easily implemented it, but their license agreement with the kernel manufacturers restricted them from doing it. The kernel itself is multithreaded, multitasking (at the hardware level), but not exposed to the OS.

[frauen1]

This is an interesting post. The main advantage of multitasking in the OS is to simplify the developer's effort in improving the user's experience. It really boils down to remembering where you were and handling changes that might happen when the user is off doing something else. With multitasking, you assume that you're still alive, so you really don't have to do anything special as a programmer.

In the Palm OS model, the programmer has to save the state when a user goes to another application (remembering where you were). If there is any activity that can take place behind the scenes (for example, an IM app that wants to stay connected when the user goes to the calendar), then the developer has to have some mechanism to handle incoming data from the server (and possible send it an occasional message saying "I'm still here"). Lots more work for developers.

You don't know how often I've had people tell me you can't keep a communications port open while you are checking the calendar on a Palm OS device and then I whip out an app that is doing just that! They then start to tell me that I must've gone through hell to get it to work. Yeah, it was hard the first time, but now that I have the code it's not so hard!

[johnsoax]

Originally Posted by TadW

John, if you used the IMAP protocol instead of POP3, that should be possible. IMAP is a server-side solution where you don't have to worry about permanently downloading messages - the messages stay on your e-mail server; plus by default, IMAP only downloads e-mail message headers, and not the entire message, unless you select individual messages.

Yes, but I don't have any email addresses that support IMAP, plus, I don't care for it. I have had too many servers fail on me, while my backups of my POP3 emails go back for years.