Multi-process structuring of user interface software

Abstract

Many contemporary user interface management systems suffer from the lack of adequate operating system support for multi-process structuring. They either adopt a single-process server approach, resulting in monolithic code, or are implemented as run-time libraries, resulting in a high degree of redundancy and complex synchronization problems. This paper, on the other hand, describes a methodology that takes advantage of lightweight processes and fast interprocess communication to structure user interface software as multiple cooperating processes. It demonstrates that such an approach can lead to exceptional flexibility -- with respect to the addition of new functionality, in particular -- without sacrificing performance.