[Info-vax] Large mailboxes

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2020-11-27 kl. 23:41, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
> On 11/26/2020 1:27 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 11/26/2020 11:30 AM, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
>>> So my question is, why this limitation ? Is it just because when this
>>> interface was written, noone imagined that there could ever be a
>>> mailbox with more than 64k outstanding messages ? Or am I really going
>>> to break something other than this counter if I try loading more
>>> than 64k messages ?
>>
>> I don't know.
>>
>> But it seems likely that noone imagined it being a problem.
>>
>> It uses non-paged pool. How big was available non-paged pool on
>> VAX systems?
>>
>> My guess is that available non-paged pool divided by a
>> normal message size would fit into 16 bit.
> 
> I could add that as a rule of thumb I would
> only use VMS mailboxes (or Windows pipes or
> *nix unix sockets) to buffer hundreds or a
> few thousands of messages.
> 
> If I needed hundreds of thousands or
> millions I would look for a message queue
> (and if I needed billions I would look at
> Kafka).
> 
> Arne
> 

Isn't the normal way to use a VMS mailbox as an on-line interface
between one (or more) senders and one recevier? That is, the
mailbox as such is never intended to "store" anything apart from
a very short time during the transmission.

If the intention is to buffer 10000's or 100000's of messages,
VMS mailboxes looks as the wrong tool from the toolbox...