The Myth of Multitasking(thenewatlantis.com)
thenewatlantis.com
The Myth of Multitasking
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/article_detail.asp?id=414&css=print
10 comments
They conflate a few different issues here, the first is interleaving which is ok since you don't really suffer a performance loss or mental setback. The other one is a context switch, for example when a manager interrupts you with something trivial. Theres nothing more effective at stalling a high speed pipeline than that.
How do you interleave without switching contexts?
Can you explain what you mean by interleaving? My intuitive definition ends up being the same as multitasking.
I'm guessing the grandparent post is talking about working on multiple (2, maybe 3) tasks. While waiting for something from one task like a compile/test run to complete or a response from another developer on a question, you can work on the other. This allows you to fill empty time with something productive and lets you context switch at favorable times.
That kind of soft context switch is fairly easy to manage. A task coming and forcing a context switch in the middle of something incurs a much higher penalty.
That kind of soft context switch is fairly easy to manage. A task coming and forcing a context switch in the middle of something incurs a much higher penalty.
Still sounds like plain 'ol multitasking to me, as does the other reply.
But with multitasking you're working on something at the direct cost of working on something else and indirect cost of time lost switching context. With this, you work on things while other items are being autoworked on (e.g. running a test or a crawl, downloading a file).
Not exactly. As kylec said above it's a different kind of multitasking. But, in a pretty real way there is no way around this kind of multitasking. If you need the results of some long running task you don't stop existing. As a result you are doing something while waiting for those results, even if that 'something' is just staring at the wall.
This is multitasking in the sense that over a period of time you will have worked on multiple things. But it isn't multitasking in the sense that you aren't doing two things at the same instant.
This is multitasking in the sense that over a period of time you will have worked on multiple things. But it isn't multitasking in the sense that you aren't doing two things at the same instant.
If I understand it correctly, interleaving seems to be like cooperative multitasking, while being interrupted by the manager seems to be like preemptive multitasking.
Multitasking is a pernicious evil of our times! Also the cost of context switching (especially for developers) can be hours per day.
Monochronism and Polychronism have been co-opted to apply to individuals but they were coined by Hall to describe patterns of culture. A highly monochronic culture would be Germany; things happen one at a time, from start to finish, where a new thing starts. A highly polychronic culture would be a lot of latin cultures, where whatever is most important that second takes precedence, no matter when you started it (this is usually determined socially; family>customer, for example).
Most cultures are more complex than that, though. Japanese business tends to be highly polychronic in the planning stages, where a consensus must be reached and all the time in the world is taken to reach it. However, once the decision has been made, the implementation is not only wicked fast but highly monochronic.
He's worth looking into if you really want to make the leap from how multi-tasking affects individuals to how it affects complex systems.