4 ms·

Hints for Computer System Design (1983)

69 points by martincmartin 10y ago

dhruvrrp 10y ago
Interesting to see the doc filled with relevant quotes. Makes the document look really polished. Which is a nice change, considering most articles these days seem to be written as if they are for the tabloids.
jakub_h 10y ago
> microsoft.com Ehm, seriously? > Butler W. Lampson Oh, ok!
anttiok 10y ago
IMHO, this is the most useful systems paper ever written. Rump kernels were designed on the listed principles. (if the implementation managed to follow the principles is of course another matter ...)
bunkydoo 10y ago
I hear they based MS Bob off the principles outlined in this white paper
maxxxxx 10y ago
This is really well written. Obviously outdated in some areas but still high quality.
- jakub_h 10y ago
  Just look at the author name. One of the Great Old Ones himself! We're not worthy.
noblethrasher 10y ago
“Cedar goes farther and does not keep track of which local variables contain pointers; instead, it assumes that they all do. This means that an integer that happens to contain the address of an object which is no longer referenced will keep that object from being freed. Measurements show that less than 1% of the storage is incorrectly retained [45].” Might this explain/justify the GC bug that 32-bit Go once had[1]? [1] https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/golang-nuts/qxlxu5RZAl0 https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/golang-nuts/qxlxu5...
- jakub_h 10y ago
  Well, conservative GC is known for this kind of problems, but the overhead is supposed to be generally bounded. I'm not sure about pathological cases; Go may have hit one back then. It highly depends on the circumstances. For example, PLT Scheme used to use the (conservative) Boehm GC in the past, and they've since replaced it, but I don't recall any such problem while they were using it (aside from the somewhat larger but bounded memory usage).
ontouchstart 10y ago
https://youtu.be/TRLJ6XdmgnA https://youtu.be/TRLJ6XdmgnA

69 points by martincmartin 10y ago

Interesting to see the doc filled with relevant quotes. Makes the document look really polished. Which is a nice change, considering most articles these days seem to be written as if they are for the tabloids.

jakub_h 10y ago

> microsoft.com Ehm, seriously? > Butler W. Lampson Oh, ok!

anttiok 10y ago

IMHO, this is the most useful systems paper ever written. Rump kernels were designed on the listed principles. (if the implementation managed to follow the principles is of course another matter ...)

bunkydoo 10y ago

I hear they based MS Bob off the principles outlined in this white paper

maxxxxx 10y ago

This is really well written. Obviously outdated in some areas but still high quality.

jakub_h 10y ago
Just look at the author name. One of the Great Old Ones himself! We're not worthy.

noblethrasher 10y ago

“Cedar goes farther and does not keep track of which local variables contain pointers; instead, it assumes that they all do. This means that an integer that happens to contain the address of an object which is no longer referenced will keep that object from being freed. Measurements show that less than 1% of the storage is incorrectly retained [45].” Might this explain/justify the GC bug that 32-bit Go once had[1]? [1] https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/golang-nuts/qxlxu5RZAl0 https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/golang-nuts/qxlxu5...

jakub_h 10y ago
Well, conservative GC is known for this kind of problems, but the overhead is supposed to be generally bounded. I'm not sure about pathological cases; Go may have hit one back then. It highly depends on the circumstances. For example, PLT Scheme used to use the (conservative) Boehm GC in the past, and they've since replaced it, but I don't recall any such problem while they were using it (aside from the somewhat larger but bounded memory usage).

ontouchstart 10y ago

https://youtu.be/TRLJ6XdmgnA https://youtu.be/TRLJ6XdmgnA