On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 14:53 -0600, Randomthots wrote:

>   and the ZIP/UNZIP process.
> 
> Which we agree probably contributes a few seconds to the process.

That depends on the size of the file. In fact compression can actually
speed up opening a file. Disc to RAM is slow but processes in RAM are
fast so loading a compressed file from disc to RAM and then
decompressing entirely in solid state could actually be faster than just
loading an uncompressed file from a disc to RAM. There are several
factors that could each be significant or insignificant.

That's why you need to do the sums and not just speculate.

> My evidence was all the disc thrashing I observed while FC3 choked on 
> the problem. BTW, Windows thrashed the disc as well, but at least it 
> didn't become completely useless in the meantime.

You mean it already had a head start :-)

Back in the good old days of 32K RAM I used a lot of abbreviations in
programmes to save space not really to make any significant differences
in speed. When you only have 32K, name lengths can become critical. In
machines with 100s of megs and discs measured in gigs, any space
sacrifice would be far outweighed by making code readable.

-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMS Ltd


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