launching on Wintel/inter-process communication

[Richard Gaskin]

Larry_R_Huisingh at rl.gov wrote:

> As far as communicating between processes I have used Win32 named pipes.
> Reading and writing are very similar if not identical to reading/writing a
> file.  I had to write a DLL that calls the Win32 API routines that open,
> close, read and write to the pipe but it works great for me.  In my case my
> MC app communicates with a C++ program on another computer via named pipes
> and it is very fast.  Now this will require Windows NT/2000/XP (not Win9x)
> if you will be communicating between two MC apps on the same computer.  This
> approach can be used to communicate with a different program on the same
> computer or one on a different computer on the network.  My program even
> checks two different computers to see which one has the named pipe I am
> looking for.  
> 
> Just one more possibility for you to consider.

I appreciate that tip, Larry. I'd forgotten about pipes (after years of MC I
kinda blank out on platform-specific solutions).  Unfortunately in my case
the two apps will be on the same computer and many will be running Win9x.

I appreciate the feedback, but I wound up polling a file for now.    While
arguably an impure solution, I only need half-second intervals so overall
it's probably not eating much more time than common polling extensions like
Apple's FolderActions and that mysterious idleTime extension from Userland
(how many times does it appear on your system even though you've never
installed Frontier?).

I suppose until MS adopts ONE inter-process model and actually sticks with
it for more than six months (there are currently 42 to choose from, all
deprecated <g>), I suppose we'll all be ghaving this conversation again
soon.

One question remains unanswered:  Why the stigma against polling?  I mean,
of course it's suboptimal compared to event-driven mechanisms like Apple
events, but in the absence of a supported event mechanism is polling really
so very bad? 

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
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