Adam Milazzo

In unix shells, child processes always block unless you tell them not to.

Eg,

$ xcalc # this blocks and doesn't return until xcalc is done
$ xcalc & # this does not block
[1]+ xcalc # it's running in the background and here's the job number

In PoSH, there seems to be no way to control this. In general, it seems that
programs block if they are console programs, but not if they are GUI
programs. However, sometimes one would want a GUI program to block, or a
console program to not block.

I realize it would complicate your "output pipeline", and your single $error
array.

But I would be perfectly content if you could not "background" a process
unless the end of the pipe was something other than the console. I would
also be content if backgrounded processes had no access to $error.

But I don't like having to start up a new instance of PoSH (which takes 9
seconds on my 3.06ghz machine -- another gripe I have), navigate to the same
directory, run the command I want, and exit, because the command would block
my main PoSH window.

I'd much rather be able to do:

build >outfile & # run my build process in the background, write the output
to 'outfile'

(I know you're using & for something else already, but you get the idea.)
Then when the build is done, I'll get a notification.

Even more importantly, I'd like to be able to force PoSH to wait for a GUI
processes to finish.

For instance:

$temp = createTempFile()
cat "some initial content" >$temp
openEditor $temp # let the user edit it
# the user is done, so something with $temp
rm $temp

I know I could probably simulate some of these things by bypassing PoSH and
spawning new processes myself, but this is the kind of thing that should be
handled in the shell.