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But what is better? Even outside of it? If you don't know the answer to that question, then you are in no position to draw sweeping false dichotomies and grand

But what is better? Even outside of it? If you don't know the answer to that question, then you are in no position to draw sweeping false dichotomies and grand proclamations as you did above. I have no interest in being your history teacher. I've posted plenty of papers on here, as has nickpsecurity here in the comments, and the link in my parent post provides a decent academic summary by one of the greats in the field. (I'm not even sure if illumos can be described as "widespread" in any fair sense. In any event, being better than some relative competitors doesn't give one the carte blanche to be a pseudohistorian and denialist.)

cthalupa 11y ago
I haven't spent my entire time on HN reading over every single comment you've made or link you've posted, so I don't think it's particularly fair or productive to act as if it is my fault that I don't have knowledge from something you wrote on some undetermined other comment. I wouldn't expect you to know something I said in some other random place. If you are going to operate under the assumption that anyone you engage in discourse with is going to be familiar with the entire body of your comment history and blog posting work, I feel you're often going to be disappointed. I'm trying to engage in some fairly civil discourse here, and I am coming into it with an open mind - I am not an academic. Nor am I a systems programmer. My frame of discussion is purely based on what I know, which is mainstream, or relatively mainstream, systems. I work with these systems on a (very) large scale. I know what frame of reference that gives me, and how that applies to me. I've looked over the other links in these comments. As best I can tell, they deal with academic scenarios, or things that are no longer in widespread use. Cantrill's article is dealing with the here and now of today's production demands. As best I can tell, your argument is that there has been work outside of today's widespread deployments that may be superior than what is currently in it. It's apparent I misunderstood your original comment to a large extent, and I apologize for that - but the argument I made was in good faith, and while I'm not expecting you to give me a history lesson, I don't think it's unfair to ask that if you are going to engage in online discourse, you be prepared to elaborate on your point if someone is trying to rationally discuss it with you.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Especially when you assert X, and someone asks for more information about X, mocking them for not knowing X and saying that you're not willing to be their teacher... that's just being highly rude. Even to say, "as I said, see [URL]" would be helpful, and would take no longer to write than what you [vezzy-fnord] wrote.
- geofft 11y ago
  I enjoy a lot of what vezzy-fnord has posted (e.g. discussions of init systems) when I see it, but I am also woefully behind on it. I'd love to put these links together in some way that's good for people to browse through and quickly get familiar with options for OS and plumbing design -- would you or vezzy-fnord be interested in helping out with such a website? I'll warn you that I have a serious bias towards systems that are or could be in wide use, though I think part of helping systems get to wide use, or at least get to the point of informing current development, is making information on them easily accessible. I've discovered a few interesting OS projects in this thread alone.
chris_wot 11y ago
Mate, I have nothing but the greatest of respect for you as you know, but this comes off a bit... arrogant. I think I know you well enough now that you aren't, but it would be good to answer the question, even if it's to say "have a look at this resource here (insert URL)". I'm definitely no fan on Bryan Cantrill, who I consider to be insufferably arrogant and hypocritical (he of the "have you ever kissed a girl", but would fire someone who he didn't employ over a personal pronoun...) but he does have a lot of experience and whilst his views are often controversial, it's probably better to counter them with information :-)
mst 11y ago
When I find myself in this sort of situation repeatedly, as it appears you do on this topic in this forum, my solution has generally been to assemble a blog post that covers not frequently asked questions but instead frequently delivered answers. Then rather than getting aggravated at having to repeat myself I just hand them a link to said post and move on. (and in case you're curious, yes I'm mst on IRC as well, though I think your network got disabled in the last or last but one config prune)

cthalupa 11y ago

I haven't spent my entire time on HN reading over every single comment you've made or link you've posted, so I don't think it's particularly fair or productive to act as if it is my fault that I don't have knowledge from something you wrote on some undetermined other comment. I wouldn't expect you to know something I said in some other random place. If you are going to operate under the assumption that anyone you engage in discourse with is going to be familiar with the entire body of your comment history and blog posting work, I feel you're often going to be disappointed. I'm trying to engage in some fairly civil discourse here, and I am coming into it with an open mind - I am not an academic. Nor am I a systems programmer. My frame of discussion is purely based on what I know, which is mainstream, or relatively mainstream, systems. I work with these systems on a (very) large scale. I know what frame of reference that gives me, and how that applies to me. I've looked over the other links in these comments. As best I can tell, they deal with academic scenarios, or things that are no longer in widespread use. Cantrill's article is dealing with the here and now of today's production demands. As best I can tell, your argument is that there has been work outside of today's widespread deployments that may be superior than what is currently in it. It's apparent I misunderstood your original comment to a large extent, and I apologize for that - but the argument I made was in good faith, and while I'm not expecting you to give me a history lesson, I don't think it's unfair to ask that if you are going to engage in online discourse, you be prepared to elaborate on your point if someone is trying to rationally discuss it with you.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
Especially when you assert X, and someone asks for more information about X, mocking them for not knowing X and saying that you're not willing to be their teacher... that's just being highly rude. Even to say, "as I said, see [URL]" would be helpful, and would take no longer to write than what you [vezzy-fnord] wrote.
geofft 11y ago
I enjoy a lot of what vezzy-fnord has posted (e.g. discussions of init systems) when I see it, but I am also woefully behind on it. I'd love to put these links together in some way that's good for people to browse through and quickly get familiar with options for OS and plumbing design -- would you or vezzy-fnord be interested in helping out with such a website? I'll warn you that I have a serious bias towards systems that are or could be in wide use, though I think part of helping systems get to wide use, or at least get to the point of informing current development, is making information on them easily accessible. I've discovered a few interesting OS projects in this thread alone.

chris_wot 11y ago

Mate, I have nothing but the greatest of respect for you as you know, but this comes off a bit... arrogant. I think I know you well enough now that you aren't, but it would be good to answer the question, even if it's to say "have a look at this resource here (insert URL)". I'm definitely no fan on Bryan Cantrill, who I consider to be insufferably arrogant and hypocritical (he of the "have you ever kissed a girl", but would fire someone who he didn't employ over a personal pronoun...) but he does have a lot of experience and whilst his views are often controversial, it's probably better to counter them with information :-)

mst 11y ago

When I find myself in this sort of situation repeatedly, as it appears you do on this topic in this forum, my solution has generally been to assemble a blog post that covers not frequently asked questions but instead frequently delivered answers. Then rather than getting aggravated at having to repeat myself I just hand them a link to said post and move on. (and in case you're curious, yes I'm mst on IRC as well, though I think your network got disabled in the last or last but one config prune)