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2019•Unpublished venueRequires access

A fork() in the road

Andrew Baumann, Jonathan Appavoo, Orran Krieger, Timothy Roscoe

Open publisher page 34 citations

Abstract

The received wisdom suggests that Unix's unusual combination of fork() and exec() for process creation was an inspired design. In this paper, we argue that fork was a clever hack for machines and programs of the 1970s that has long outlived its usefulness and is now a liability. We catalog the ways in which fork is a terrible abstraction for the modern programmer to use, describe how it compromises OS implementations, and propose alternatives.

About this research paper

What this paper is about

The received wisdom suggests that Unix's unusual combination of fork() and exec() for process creation was an inspired design. In this paper, we argue that fork was a clever hack for machines and programs of the 1970s that has long outlived its usefulness and is now a liability. We catalog the ways in which fork is a terrible abstraction for the modern programmer to use, describe how it compromises OS implementations, and propose alternatives.

Why it matters

OpenAlex reports 34 citations for this work. Citation counts describe recorded attention and do not establish research quality.

Key contribution

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Method / approach

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Available abstract

The received wisdom suggests that Unix's unusual combination of fork() and exec() for process creation was an inspired design. In this paper, we argue that fork was a clever hack for machines and programs of the 1970s that has long outlived its usefulness and is now a liability. We catalog the ways in which fork is a terrible abstraction for the modern programmer to use, describe how it compromises OS implementations, and propose alternatives.

Key concepts: Fork (system call), Computer science, Programmer, Abstraction, Unix, Implementation, Process (computing), Programming language

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