Hasnain says:

I kept going “huh, TIL” while reading this piece. Bookmarking for the future.

“I hope this article has shown you that signals, while they may ostensibly appear simple, are in reality anything but. The aesthetics of simplicity that promote their use as an API for user space software belie a series of implicit design decisions that do not fit most production use cases in the modern era.

Let’s be clear: there are valid use cases for signals. Signals are fine for basic communication with the kernel about a desired process state when there’s no user space component, for example, that a process should be killed. However, it is difficult to write signal-correct code the first time around when signals are expected to be trapped in user space.

Signals may seem attractive due to their standardization, wide availability and lack of dependencies, but they come with a significant number of pitfalls that will only increase concern as your project grows. Hopefully, this article has provided you with some mitigations and alternative strategies that will allow you to still achieve your goals, but in a safer, less subtly complex and more intuitive way.”

Posted on 2022-10-16T19:30:51+0000