threading

Wed Apr 9 19:19:45 EDT 2014

Roy Smith wrote:
> In the old days, all Unix system calls were divided up into two groups, 
> based on whether they were "fast" or "slow". Processes executing a 
> "fast" system call would block, and could not be interrupted;

That doesn't really have anything to do with blocking vs.
non-blocking, though. The system call blocks in both cases;
the only difference is whether the kernel bothers to allow
for aborting the blocked operation part way through. The
calling process doesn't see any difference.
-- 
Greg