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Do you think it is OK for this question, "Why is creating a new process more expensive on Windows than Linux?", to be on Stack Overflow (Super User or Server Fault would be the alternative)?

Why or why not?

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Why do you even care? The community seems to accept it as valid. –  Georg Schölly Dec 14 '09 at 6:49
@gs: because I thought it was a borderline case. Now I know it isn't and I have learned something. Hopefully others have learned something as well. –  Peter Mortensen Dec 14 '09 at 9:22

3 Answers 3

up vote 14 down vote accepted

The answer is a programming one ("...because of this difference in the way the kernels were designed..."), and is more important to programmers (who must decide when to use threads and when to use processes) than to users or admins.

So it definitely belongs on Stack Overflow.

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I buy the processes vs. threads argument. –  Peter Mortensen Dec 13 '09 at 20:02

It's very relevant to programming. If you're writing software for Windows and considering a port to a *nix system... or vice versa... Then you'll want to know how they differ in behavior, design philosophy, and especially performance.

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If you really care, you can do an experiment:

  • create the questions of all three places
  • after a few days check which one has brought the best answers for you
  • meanwhile you can watch if anyone claims the question inappropriate for any given place, or if the question is closed at any of them

I would create it on Stack Overflow as I think it is most likely programmers will be able to answer this, because it is programmer who care about performance of individual API calls - and programmers visit Stack Overflow most.

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I see this as a recommendation to spam the sites with unnecessary duplicates. Bad, bad idea. –  dmckee Dec 13 '09 at 19:44
Definitely, do not post on meta. Your question would be closed here before you say "oops". :) –  Suma Dec 13 '09 at 19:51

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