04-Apr-91 11:02 William.S.Reilly Post-task task From: William.S.Reilly@TINMAN.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU Hi everyone! Sorry to interrupt (get it? interrupt!). This won't take long. I was just sitting here thinking (as I am wont to do during tasks) and visions of pipelines were skitting about in my head when I came to realize just how useful pipelines are for everday types of things. To show you what I mean I have come up with sort of a post-task task for you all to show what you've really learned so far in CS. Here's the task: Imagine you are sitting in PHI at around 5:05 this afternoon and you want to drink. Well, I have come up with a pipelined execution for this task. It goes something like: order_beer drink_beer order_beer drink_beer order_beer drink_beer etc... There is, however, a problem with this pipeline. Since you have only one mouth that you need for both drinking and ordering you have encountered a structural hazard that needs to be dealt with. Your task is to evaluate the following design alternatives for dealing with this hazard. You will need to consider bathroom interrupts and other hazards (like crossing Forbes) for your discussion to be complete. Design options: 1) Do both stages at the same time even if it means spewing beer whoever is unfortunate enough to sit across from you. 2) Use sign language to order your beer. (Hints: you will need to discuss how to do this with one hand since this could lead to another structural hazard otherwise - also discussion about words that rhyme with "beer" for a sound-like approach are necessary to get full credit). 3) Forget the whole pipeline thing and just order a pitcher and a straw. The task will be graded at PHI at 5:05 this afternoon. Extra credit will be awarded for those actually demonstrating their design proposal. - Scott "It's beginning to get to me" Reilly ----------