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The UI does obscures the best of plan9. There are defenders of it. But, if we assume that the goal of Plan9 was to obsolete unix with something better by the la
by cturner 11y ago
The UI does obscures the best of plan9. There are defenders of it. But, if we assume that the goal of Plan9 was to obsolete unix with something better by the late 90s, the UI is a big part of the failure. It scared people users.
Your alternative doesn't work. Qt in particular is a platform that goes out of its way to obscure the underlying platform. You could probably use GTK in a 9er way. Still, it wouldn't make sense for applications - the apps written on GTK for unix or windows don't stick close to the everything-is-a-file approach. They are monolithic and beige.
Winning users to Plan9 is particularly difficult because part of the vision is about creating a network, rather than a computer. From this, it follows that it doesn't make sense to have sshd run on it. I think the community made a mistake here. If they'd offered a sshd entrypoint, it would have offered a path-to-adoption for new users coming from a unix background. On the path they've taken, there's a high barrier to entry to anyone wanting to do work with it in a non-pure way. If it had ssh, you could sneak it into enterprise. That's not practical for plan9 in its its current form.
- stonogo 11y agoWhat you're talking about is using plan 9 to do unix things, and there is no benefit to that. Plan 9 is a real distributed system, not a loosely-connected pile of autonomous units. Trying to gain any benefit of the plan 9 architecture by crippling it with an overengineered telex emulator is missing the point entirely. Not to mention the fact that ssh has existed for plan 9 for as long as there has been ssh. Plan 9 is older than ssh. Plan 9 also supported rsh and all the other awful unix communications protocols. They never gained popularity with plan 9 users because superior alternatives existed, which made better use of the OS abilities.
- cturner 11y agoI think we generally agree as to the strengths of plan 9. > plan 9 to do unix things, and there is no benefit to that No - there is. Lots of benefit. Often when I'm thinking about approaches to an IPC problem, I'll go to the plan9 manuals and find an approach that is much more evolved than what's in Stevens. It's not hard to sell people on 9p. Unix people are attracted to plan9. But it'd be nice to be able to learn rc in isolation, without having to deal with the cog/overload of the window manager and the unfamiliar editors. And then gradually move your tool chain over to 9p. Once they were established they'd branch out towards the other awesome stuff. > Trying to gain any benefit of the plan 9 architecture > by crippling it with an overengineered telex emulator > is missing the point entirely. Baby steps. > Not to mention the fact that ssh has existed for > plan 9 for as long as there has been ssh Really? How do you set up a ssh server on plan9?
- stonogo 11y ago> But it'd be nice to be able to learn rc in isolation, No, because rc "lacks" features unix users are used to, such as command history. The reason rc does not have this sort of thing is because it's unnecessary thanks to rio. Without rio, rc is not a useful interactive shell. Without using rc interactively, why bother using it instead of perl or python? It's just another programming language at that point. > Really? How do you set up a ssh server on plan9? sshserve(1) (see ssh1(1)) for sshv1, and sshsession(1) (see ssh2(1)) for sshv2.
- cturner 11y ago> No, because rc "lacks" features unix users are used to, such as command history. Hmm. You're right. The general problem remains. It's difficult to build momentum in a platform that operates as an all-or-nothing proposition. 9p might offer a way in though.