Re: load average and parallel execution

[ali hagigat]

Dear Sam,
Thank you for your effort to help me though you hardly understand the
real reasons of my questions often. Please notice why i asked that
question, it was because one sentence of the manual as follows:
---------------------------------------
-l 2.5
will not let make start more than one job if the load average is above 2.5.
---------------------------------------
What does this sentence mean? It means if our load average is 3 for
example, then make starts one job but not more than one job at that
moment!!?
It indicates that make starts something even though it sees that load
average is above 2.5!

I think the manual is ambiguous and some what in contradiction with
the lines that follows. It should say:
"make will not start new jobs till load average is 2.5 or above AND
the number of jobs is at least one"

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Sam Ravnborg <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 07:35:52AM -0500, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> > Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:48:39 +0100
>> > From: Sam Ravnborg <address@hidden>
>> > Cc: address@hidden
>> >
>> > And the manual documents this:
>> >
>> > More precisely, when make goes to start up a job, and it already has at 
>> > least one job running, it checks the current load average; if it is not 
>> > lower than the limit given with ‘-l’, make waits until the load average 
>> > goes below that limit, or until all the other jobs finish.
>> >
>> > How did you miss this?
>>
>> He could miss it because the manual doesn't do a very good job to
>> connect the dots between the paragraph you cited and the previous one,
>> which Ali cited and misunderstood.  The text describes, in rigorous
>> mathematical way, the algorithm used by the implementation of the -l
>> switch, but it should instead describe what the user of Make will see,
>> and make that description follow logically from the previous
>> paragraph.
>>
>> Please stop assuming that any question that seems (to native English
>> speakers) to be answered in the manual is necessarily asked because
>> the person who asks the question didn't bother to read the text or
>> make the minimal effort to understand it.  Please allow for some
>> reasonable amount of misunderstanding, and please realize that part of
>> that misunderstanding is the fault of the authors of the manual, not
>> necessarily of its "lazy" readers.
>
> Said person could try to start showing that he actully read the relevant
> parts of the manual.
> I asked why the paragraph following the paragraph in question was missed.
> Even is Ali may not be native english then he shaould read the answers
> that he receives - they tell him to read following paragraphs.
> If he did and still faield to understand then this info could be useful
> when answerign him.
>
>>
>> > Since you asked I assume you already tried this and concluded
>> > something else than what is written in the manual.
>> > If my assumption is correct then please include this info.
>>
>> He already said what he concluded: that the manual was in error.  That
>> happens, you know, as no one is perfect.  When I see something in a
>> manual that doesn't make sense to me, I consider this possibility as
>> well.  I'm sure you do, too.
>>
>> > In other words - please show that you actually _tried_ to understand before
>> > you decided to ask.
>>
>> There's no such requirement for messages posted on help-SOMETHING
>> forums.  People who are annoyed by those they perceive as clueless
>> have an excellent choice: to say nothing in response.
>
> You are full of bullshit Eli. This is by far not the first time
> you raise your opinions - and your response was not a big suprise.
> As a person that have asked 25+ questions on this list and
> have received many lenghty answers it is IMO OK to assume
> said person do an effort to understand things.
> Ali fails to show that he did any effort - so I ask if he did any effort.
>
>        Sam
>