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Re: Sending an interrupt to the frontend?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg127448] Re: Sending an interrupt to the frontend?
  • From: Yves Klett <yves.klett at googlemail.com>
  • Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 03:31:24 -0400 (EDT)
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Ralf,

good question - some of the frontend stuff (e.g.  rendered graphs) are
dynamic objects by default. Perhaps you can make up a minimal notebook
and see when that happens. The gamut of "dynamic content" may also be
wider than literally dynamic code...

Perhaps someone in the know can chime in here?

In a vague kind of way this thread may be related:

http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/8357/security-of-mathematica-demonstrations

Regards,
Yves

Am 25.07.2012 08:32, schrieb Ralph Dratman:
> Yves,
> 
> Do you know any way to prevent the insertion of code classified as
> "dynamic"? I don't knowingly use any code of that kind, yet I
> frequently see a message to the effect that my notebook contains
> "unsafe" dynamic content!
> 
> Ralph
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 3:48 AM, Yves Klett <yves.klett at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> Michael,
>>
>> the subjective stability changed brutally between versions 5 and 6 with
>> the introduction of the whole dynamic frontend stuff. With version 6 and
>> all the very desirable interactivity the number of kernel kills rocketed
>> for me.
>>
>> If you use this heavily there are often hangs/crashes that seem
>> difficult to reproduce. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Which
>> can be quite vexing. Of course this may still be due to bad programming,
>> but in a rather non-deterministic fashion.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Yves
>>
>> Am 19.07.2012 09:51, schrieb Michael Weyrauch:
>>> Ralph,
>>>
>>>     I really would like to understand your critical remarks somewhat
>>> better.
>>>
>>> It is clear that one can easily and quickly run the frontend irresponsive.
>>> However, in most cases I know, this is actually due to bad programming
>>> (from Mathematica's point of view) rather than an instable product.
>>>
>>> One typical reason is that a command returns symbolic results where the
>>> programmer actually expected only numerical stuff, and quickly things get completely out of hand.  But how should Mathematica know that all this was not intended?
>>>
>>> It is the tremendous flexibility and the many possibilities which
>>> sometims get into the way, and as a consequence the frontend can not
>>> handle the output from the kernel any more.
>>>
>>> I really do not understand where you expect Wolfram to get "its act
>>> together". My experience tells me: A good Mathematica program may run
>>> for days without any instability. But my stupitidy and/or lasy
>>> programming can run it against
>>> the wall within seconds. Mathematica as such is definitely not unstable.
>>> (of course, sometimes there are bugs as with any other major (and minor)
>>> software).
>>>
>>> Michael
>>>
>>>
>>> Am 15.07.2012 10:28, schrieb Ralph Dratman:
>>>> David,
>>>>
>>>> "Troublesome" puts the matter rather tactfully.
>>>>
>>>> Bluntly, there is no excuse for a major product to display such a
>>>> level of instability in 2012.
>>>>
>>>> Since I personally like Mathematica so much, and because I use it
>>>> constantly, I find the crashes to be both an embarrassment and a
>>>> disappointment.
>>>>
>>>> I can only hope Wolfram Research will soon get its act together on
>>>> this critically important issue.
>>>>
>>>> Ralph
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 1:28 AM, David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>> On 12/07/2012 10:00, Yves Klett wrote:
>>>>>> In earlier incarnations, the kernel would show up as a separate entry in
>>>>>> the taskbar (on Win XP, that was), which made it very convenient to
>>>>>> kill. I kind of miss that behaviour (when things go wrong repeatedly).
>>>>>
>>>>> I wrote a C program that executes the command
>>>>>
>>>>> c:\windows\System32\taskkill.exe /im MathKernel.exe /t /f
>>>>>
>>>>> This runs in the background all the time, and responds to a hot key!
>>>>>
>>>>> The fact that I took time to set this up, probably reflects just how
>>>>> troublesome kernel hangs can be!
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps at the very least Mathematica could spawn a program of this type.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Bailey
>>>>> http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> 



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