ruck@reef.cis.ufl.edu (John Ruckstuhl) (06/07/91)
We have commercial electronics design software, Valid, running on Suns.
This SW insists on double-spooling plotter jobs.
Does this make sense?
Is this a common solution among SW products?
I don't see the necessity or advantage.
From the Valid Guide to Operations explanation:
The /etc/printcap entry for (application-specific-pseudo-device)
instructs lpd to run the (application-filter) on the data.
The (application-filter) transforms the input data into a format
acceptable to the plotter and calls lpr with the -Pplotter-name
option to sent the formatted plotter file to the correct directory
for the type of plotter specified.
Another daemon then spools the plotter-specific files to the
plotter.
The double spooling allows other programs to access plotters in an
orderly fashion, and keeps (application) users from having to wait
for their plots to be processed.
Can't one achieve the same effect, and wouldn't it be cleaner, if the SW
just sent the data directly through the application-filter to the print
spool in the background.
Thank you for your comments.
Best Regards,
ruck
--
John R Ruckstuhl, Jr ruck@alpha.ee.ufl.edu
Dept of Electrical Engineering ruck@cis.ufl.edu, uflorida!ruck
University of Florida ruck%sphere@cis.ufl.edu, sphere!ruckclewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) (06/09/91)
In article <28996@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> ruck@reef.cis.ufl.edu (John Ruckstuhl) writes: |We have commercial electronics design software, Valid, running on Suns. |This SW insists on double-spooling plotter jobs. | Does this make sense? | Is this a common solution among SW products? |I don't see the necessity or advantage. |From the Valid Guide to Operations explanation: | The double spooling allows other programs to access plotters in an | orderly fashion, and keeps (application) users from having to wait | for their plots to be processed. |Can't one achieve the same effect, and wouldn't it be cleaner, if the SW |just sent the data directly through the application-filter to the print |spool in the background. The reason for this is simple - presumably the application filter is kinda slow and a bit of a hog, so the double spooling prevents more than one simultaneous execution of the application filter. Which is the polite thing to do if more than one simultaneous invocations causes your machine to crawl. -- Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541, Domain: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca UUCP: ...!cunews!latour!ecicrl!clewis; Ferret Mailing List: ferret-request@eci386; Psroff (not Adobe Transcript) enquiries: psroff-request@eci386 or Canada 416-832-0541. Psroff 3.0 in c.s.u soon!