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The "PCLSRing" technique to essentially back out of an active syscall is worth studying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCLSRing http://fare.tunes.org/tmp/emergent/pclsr.htm. It's much better than the UNIX approach of returning early with an error or incomplete data.


> much better than

Funny to say that, when the comparison between these two approaches was the subject of the original "Worse is Better" article: http://dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html


Actually, as I understand it, the BSDs will now PCLSR some calls.

Might be wrong though, so don't quote me.


The first article then goes on a synchronous vs async tangent. Is there some paper or textbook comparing the general syscall design between various OS families?




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