Comment by IshKebab
11 hours ago
It's not conceptually simple. No other object creation API works by copying an existing thing and then modifying it. You don't create a new file by copying an existing one and then modifying it. You don't create a new window by copying an existing one and modifying it.
Attempting to justify clone/exec as a reasonable design is just Stockholm syndrome.
> No other object creation API works by copying an existing thing and then modifying it.
Clone-and-modify is pretty common in CAD.
> You don't create a new file by copying an existing one and then modifying it.
Clone-and-modify is almost universal in version control systems.
> Clone-and-modify is almost universal in version control systems.
It's closer to copy-on-write. Also, it actually makes sense there because in 99.999% of cases a commit actually is a modified copy of its parent. That isn't true for process spawning.