[marcosdumay]

You shouldn't have to pay that much. Pipes give you almost nothing, so they should cost almost nothing.

Specifically, there aren't many reasons for your fastest IPC to be slower than a long function call.

[nitwit005]

If you don't think pipes offer much, don't use them.

Saying "long function call" doesn't mean much since a function can take infinitely long.

[marcosdumay]

A long distance function call, that invalidates everything on your cache.

[saagarjha]

…which is quite expensive.

[marcosdumay]

Yes, it is. But it's much cheaper than interacting by pipe.

Linux is optimizing sockets with a similar goal. And it's quite far on that direction. But there's still some margin to gain.