4 ms·

Multitasking existed long before computers, so I don't like the title much. You probably can't cook a meal without multitasking. The author suggests that you a

Multitasking existed long before computers, so I don't like the title much. You probably can't cook a meal without multitasking. The author suggests that you are rapidly switching focus, but I don't agree - if you schedule things correctly you can jump from task to task without thinking about it. Eg if you know you need to make a burger with fries and a plate of nachos at the same time you can schedule the tasks based on how much time they take - burger on the grill, fries in the grease, start prepping the bun/plate, get the nachos built and in the broiler, pull the fries and let them drain, plate the burger, add the fries, pull the nachos out, out the window for service. You don't need to think much ahead to get it done while in the process, if you already know the plan and are used to it. Everything has a timer and you just need to move things when the timer says go. Bonus points if the timer is internal.

polishdude20 4y ago
Yeah but is that truly multi tasking? Seems more like an event loop. Which is a form of multi tasking I guess.
- oso2k 4y ago
  In CS, that is more generally called scheduling or pipelining. And they’re forms of queuing theory and capacity resource management. For me, multitasking is the introduction of prioritization into the task queue management. In the above post, there’s a Finish-to-Finish prioritization introduced. We want hot burgers and nachos to complete at the same time or nearly the same time. So, yeah, I’d call that multitasking.
kaba0 4y ago
We can’t do parallelism, only concurrency on a cognitive level. Think of your brain like the CPU, while your appendages can be thought of as some PCIe connected device. The CPU can send tasks to those and given a well-known pattern it can execute them autonomously (e.g. you can walk without actively thinking about it. But if there is dog shit on the streets you want to avoid you will have to look up and allocate CPU time to the task)
- messe 4y ago
  > We can’t do parallelism, only concurrency on a cognitive level. While that might be through of conscious thought, but there's definitely at least anecdotal evidence to suggest that the brain performs tasks in the background. Think about how many times you've struggled to remember the name of an author, a movie, an actor; only to have it come to you hours later while you're working on something entirely unrelated.
  - orev 4y ago
    A computer accomplishes tasks by coordinating many subsystems. Not everything is done in the CPU, and the brain is similar. The central unit can make requests of other components (e.g. storage controller), and they go off and do it while the central unit does something else. Only the real heavy thinking/processing happens in the CPU, and that’s always what discussions about human multitasking are talking about. Brains and computer systems work in similar ways.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      Even the CPU itself has different processing units which it uses to delegate such tasks and achieve parallelism for tasks which don't have data dependencies
    - interroboink 4y ago
      > Only the real heavy thinking/processing happens in the CPU... > Brains and computer systems work in similar ways. I think that this characterization is pretty simplistic. Perhaps it's useful as a model from time to time, but does not capture the massively complex reality, full of unknowns and poorly understood by science to this day. Where is this "CPU" in the brain, of which you speak? I suppose the pre-frontal cortex? That zone is generally associated with orchestration/planning, that you mention. But to say that those functions constitute "the real heavy thinking" is a bit of a reach, I think. It would be like saying the manager does the all the hard work (: I'm no neuroscientist, but anecdotally, a good portion of my important mental results come from an unknown place — maybe bubbling to the forefront of consciousness when I'm sitting on the toilet, or in a dream. Not when my "CPU is spinning", so to speak. YMMV.
tartoran 4y ago
> You probably can't cook a meal without multitasking But cooking a meal is a task in itself ( consisting related of subtasks). When cooking a meal it is a good idea to avoid attempting other unrelated tasks such as responding to emails and such as the quality of the original task will decrease

polishdude20 4y ago

Yeah but is that truly multi tasking? Seems more like an event loop. Which is a form of multi tasking I guess.

oso2k 4y ago
In CS, that is more generally called scheduling or pipelining. And they’re forms of queuing theory and capacity resource management. For me, multitasking is the introduction of prioritization into the task queue management. In the above post, there’s a Finish-to-Finish prioritization introduced. We want hot burgers and nachos to complete at the same time or nearly the same time. So, yeah, I’d call that multitasking.

kaba0 4y ago

We can’t do parallelism, only concurrency on a cognitive level. Think of your brain like the CPU, while your appendages can be thought of as some PCIe connected device. The CPU can send tasks to those and given a well-known pattern it can execute them autonomously (e.g. you can walk without actively thinking about it. But if there is dog shit on the streets you want to avoid you will have to look up and allocate CPU time to the task)

messe 4y ago
> We can’t do parallelism, only concurrency on a cognitive level. While that might be through of conscious thought, but there's definitely at least anecdotal evidence to suggest that the brain performs tasks in the background. Think about how many times you've struggled to remember the name of an author, a movie, an actor; only to have it come to you hours later while you're working on something entirely unrelated.
- orev 4y ago
  A computer accomplishes tasks by coordinating many subsystems. Not everything is done in the CPU, and the brain is similar. The central unit can make requests of other components (e.g. storage controller), and they go off and do it while the central unit does something else. Only the real heavy thinking/processing happens in the CPU, and that’s always what discussions about human multitasking are talking about. Brains and computer systems work in similar ways.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Even the CPU itself has different processing units which it uses to delegate such tasks and achieve parallelism for tasks which don't have data dependencies
  - interroboink 4y ago
    > Only the real heavy thinking/processing happens in the CPU... > Brains and computer systems work in similar ways. I think that this characterization is pretty simplistic. Perhaps it's useful as a model from time to time, but does not capture the massively complex reality, full of unknowns and poorly understood by science to this day. Where is this "CPU" in the brain, of which you speak? I suppose the pre-frontal cortex? That zone is generally associated with orchestration/planning, that you mention. But to say that those functions constitute "the real heavy thinking" is a bit of a reach, I think. It would be like saying the manager does the all the hard work (: I'm no neuroscientist, but anecdotally, a good portion of my important mental results come from an unknown place — maybe bubbling to the forefront of consciousness when I'm sitting on the toilet, or in a dream. Not when my "CPU is spinning", so to speak. YMMV.

tartoran 4y ago

> You probably can't cook a meal without multitasking But cooking a meal is a task in itself ( consisting related of subtasks). When cooking a meal it is a good idea to avoid attempting other unrelated tasks such as responding to emails and such as the quality of the original task will decrease