Roedy Green wrote in his sig:
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
A short order cook is a master of multitasking. Every movement is
optimised from years of practice. Yet when a computer executes a
multitasking program, it approaches the task as if for the first time.
Interesting, if incorrect, observation. It's not always true - some
programs persist state between invocations, so they do not approach
all aspects of a task as if for the first time. Programs evolve -
features are added, bugs patched, architecture optimized - so after
years of practice every instruction of the program is optimized.
Whether the program is multitasking is not germane - programs are
optimized or not for non-multitasked programs as for multitasked ones.
Taking "as if for the first time" a different way - each program is
sung for the first time the same way a hit record is - no matter how
many times you execute that MP3 it sounds exactly like the other times
because it's the exact same recipe. In that regard the observation is
trivial - of course a computer executes each program as if for the
first time because it is not sentient, and therefore has no memory or
consciousness for "another time" to have meaning.