7 ms·

http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/geek-of-the-week/chuck-moo

http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/geek-of-the-week/chuck-moore-on-the-lost-art-of-keeping-it-simple/ https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/geek-of-the-wee... The first one has where he mentions the OS. Personally, I do think the OS is needed, but not in its present form. Instead, something far far simpler than even Linux. Yes, I've seen Alan Kay's similar presentation on the amount of code in windows and the F-22 raptor. Stacked it is supposedly unbelievably high like many stories, while their Smalltalk Machine built at Xerox had the entire language, GUI, text editor, image programs...etc in a tiny amount of code. In the modern day I think of Rebol which has a very powerful and simple DSL for so many tasks such as creating GUIs and the full download is like a few MB with zero install. Truly a marvelous piece of software.

mwcampbell 9y ago
> the entire language, GUI, text editor, image programs...etc in a tiny amount of code But it wasn't internationalized, accessible to people with various disabilities (e.g. blind people via a screen reader), automatically installing updates over the network, encrypting all communication over the network (as in TLS today), etc. No doubt some bloat comes from accumulated incidental complexity. But to some extent (I don't know how much), one person's bloat is another person's essential features. For example, if you tell me about some bloat-free GUI toolkit that draws its own widgets (as opposed to a wrapper over multiple platform native toolkits), my immediate reaction will be "What about accessibility?".
- mpweiher 9y ago
  [missing features] Well, MS Office, for example, is around 20000x the code of early Smalltalk "Personal Computing" systems. Let's assume that that core code covers only 1% of the features, so you'd need 100x more code to implement all of them. I think this is being very generous, but let's stick with it. That would mean you still have a factor 200 unaccounted for. In other words, even when being very generous, we still haven't accounted for 99.5% of the code.
  - throwaway7645 9y ago
    Thank you, that's what I was trying to say. I'd argue that 95% of all Word users only use a tiny fraction of what the product can do and if they had just written that part, it wouldn't need to be that insane amount of code. Even if you added all the network features...etc to their Smalltalk machine, I bet they would've done it with less code than MSWord, not to mention the size of the rest of Windows which is insane. I think his point might have been that society is on this path with ridiculous software size, complexity, bloat...etc. This software is enormously difficult to maintain, impossible to rewrite, and too hard for even a group of people to understand. Kay's talks are on YouTube and definitely worth a go. He also posts on here sometimes I believe, so maybe he will correct my assumptions.
    - Qwertious 9y ago
      >I'd argue that 95% of all Word users only use a tiny fraction of what the product can do and if they had just written that part, it wouldn't need to be that insane amount of code. Problem is, they use different tiny fractions.
    - com2kid 9y ago
      > I'd argue that 95% of all Word users only use a tiny fraction of what the product can do and if they had just written that part, it wouldn't need to be that insane amount of code. I think you'd be surprised. Insert a graph into Word, now all of a sudden you need OLE so that when the underlying data changes the graph is automatically updated, axis are renumbered properly, the legend is in place, etc. Insert a picture. Now it needs a caption. How does that picture flow with the rest of the text? Just looking at the "Insert" tab in Word, I've used: 1. Page Break 2. Cover Page 3. Tables 4. Pictures 5. Shapes. 6. Smart Art 7. Chart 8. Links 9. Bookmarks 10. Cross-references 11. Comments 12. Header, footer, page numbering 13. Drop Caps 14. Interacting with Signature Lines 15. Date & Time 16. Symbols 17. Equations That is 70% of the features of that one tab. Feature code is expensive, it costs to write, and it has a heavy cost to maintain. It rarely gets written unless there is a demonstrated customer need for it. There have been a lot of competing word processors over the years that pop up with just a minimal set of features, some of them even had Word support. These word processors end up being discarded the second someone comes across a feature it doesn't have, they need, and that Word does have. Excel is even more this way. Look at a power user of Excel, a huge % of the program is exercised on any given day. Some groups use more of the numerical abilities, but a huge number of features are going to get exercised by a user on any given day. > I think his point might have been that society is on this path with ridiculous software size, complexity, bloat...etc. Maybe. But what is bloat? Apps written in Electron are easier to maintain and update despite the underlying platform being huge. I'd say it is because Electron solves a lot of small problems for you, but perhaps it is also because people give up on some things. Electron apps don't have the theming support that Winamp did, but adding real time streaming support for audio/video takes months instead of years, and has become table stakes in the modern world instead of an amazing differentiator. I'm not really sure where I stand on all this anymore. :)
- beagle3 9y ago
  kOS from http://kparc.com http://kparc.com boots on metal, has a workable GUI, network, file system, text editor, database, programming language and a few other bells and whistles, in less than 500KB uncompressed. No, it doesn't have accessibility or internationalization, but I suspect if it did (by the same people) it would not be much larger beyond the inherent complexity - e.g. Unicode directionality and glyph data; or sound waveforms for text to speech. Most of the size of modern software, OS included, is accidental
  - feelin_googley 9y ago
    Which particular metal has been tested? I would like to buy that metal now. Are they making this compliant with the multiboot specification so the user can use her own choice of bootloader? If it is ARM, which bootloader are they using?
    - beagle3 9y ago
      Some asus model iirc; user geocar on HN is actually involved with the project, I believe - I'm just following progress.
  - throwaway7645 9y ago
    For those not aware, this is a bare-metal system for the k-language which is what you use with the kdb+ database system. It allows the user to program in an array based language (ASCI APL descendent) so they can write very terse and fairly fast programs with a GUI and when kOS comes out it wont need a traditional OS. The fintech industry pays kdb+ developers quite well. The entire language is probably only a few pages of C too as Arthur Whitney is a genius and his last language was like that. The only issue i have is it is really expensive and closed source.
wolfgke 9y ago
> Instead, something far far simpler than even Linux. Who said that Linux is simple?
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  Good point. I guess in comparison to Windows.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    If you want an "academically fair" (e.g. only compare parts that implement related functionality) comparison for Linux (the kernel!), you should compare it to ntdll.dll+hal.dll (these implement the kernel; cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Windows_library_files&oldid=797308581#Internal_components https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Windows...). Here I think Linux would not be fare better (in terms of size) against Windows. You say this is (from a practical perspective) an unfair comparison for Linux, since under Linux, your applications can (in principle) call the kernel directly, while under Windows, they are linked against the subsystem that one wants to use - so one has to include the subsystem, too. I agree here - but this already makes a comparison much harder, since there is no related concept to "subsystem" under GNU/Linux. Indeed what people describe as "bloated" under Windows is not the kernel itself, but the perhaps Windows subsystem and even more the immense amount of intertwined components that are installed by default on a Windows installation. So a more fair comparison (from practical considerations) for Windows against GNU/Linux in terms of size would be a minimal system with which you can work properly and is supported by some vendor (to exclude some really experimental hacks of some Linux nerds which are really small in size, but not suitable for proper work). For Linux one can surely find such a configuration. For Windows the proper configuration to choose is "Windows Server 2016" in the "Server Core" or even "Nano Core" configuration: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Server_Core&oldid=797310098 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Server_Core&oldid... Here I am sure the Linux sample would still be smaller than the "Server Core"/"Nano Core" installation of Windows Server - but Microsoft has learned their lesson that there exist users who want a really slicked down Server version of Windows and has delivered.
wolfgke 9y ago
> http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm > https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/geek-of-the-week/chuck-moore-on-the-lost-art-of-keeping-it-simple/ https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/geek-of-the-wee... For a different perspective on Forth and Chuck Moore read > http://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.html http://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.... (also read the comments).

mwcampbell 9y ago

> the entire language, GUI, text editor, image programs...etc in a tiny amount of code But it wasn't internationalized, accessible to people with various disabilities (e.g. blind people via a screen reader), automatically installing updates over the network, encrypting all communication over the network (as in TLS today), etc. No doubt some bloat comes from accumulated incidental complexity. But to some extent (I don't know how much), one person's bloat is another person's essential features. For example, if you tell me about some bloat-free GUI toolkit that draws its own widgets (as opposed to a wrapper over multiple platform native toolkits), my immediate reaction will be "What about accessibility?".

mpweiher 9y ago
[missing features] Well, MS Office, for example, is around 20000x the code of early Smalltalk "Personal Computing" systems. Let's assume that that core code covers only 1% of the features, so you'd need 100x more code to implement all of them. I think this is being very generous, but let's stick with it. That would mean you still have a factor 200 unaccounted for. In other words, even when being very generous, we still haven't accounted for 99.5% of the code.
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  Thank you, that's what I was trying to say. I'd argue that 95% of all Word users only use a tiny fraction of what the product can do and if they had just written that part, it wouldn't need to be that insane amount of code. Even if you added all the network features...etc to their Smalltalk machine, I bet they would've done it with less code than MSWord, not to mention the size of the rest of Windows which is insane. I think his point might have been that society is on this path with ridiculous software size, complexity, bloat...etc. This software is enormously difficult to maintain, impossible to rewrite, and too hard for even a group of people to understand. Kay's talks are on YouTube and definitely worth a go. He also posts on here sometimes I believe, so maybe he will correct my assumptions.
  - Qwertious 9y ago
    >I'd argue that 95% of all Word users only use a tiny fraction of what the product can do and if they had just written that part, it wouldn't need to be that insane amount of code. Problem is, they use different tiny fractions.
  - com2kid 9y ago
    > I'd argue that 95% of all Word users only use a tiny fraction of what the product can do and if they had just written that part, it wouldn't need to be that insane amount of code. I think you'd be surprised. Insert a graph into Word, now all of a sudden you need OLE so that when the underlying data changes the graph is automatically updated, axis are renumbered properly, the legend is in place, etc. Insert a picture. Now it needs a caption. How does that picture flow with the rest of the text? Just looking at the "Insert" tab in Word, I've used: 1. Page Break 2. Cover Page 3. Tables 4. Pictures 5. Shapes. 6. Smart Art 7. Chart 8. Links 9. Bookmarks 10. Cross-references 11. Comments 12. Header, footer, page numbering 13. Drop Caps 14. Interacting with Signature Lines 15. Date & Time 16. Symbols 17. Equations That is 70% of the features of that one tab. Feature code is expensive, it costs to write, and it has a heavy cost to maintain. It rarely gets written unless there is a demonstrated customer need for it. There have been a lot of competing word processors over the years that pop up with just a minimal set of features, some of them even had Word support. These word processors end up being discarded the second someone comes across a feature it doesn't have, they need, and that Word does have. Excel is even more this way. Look at a power user of Excel, a huge % of the program is exercised on any given day. Some groups use more of the numerical abilities, but a huge number of features are going to get exercised by a user on any given day. > I think his point might have been that society is on this path with ridiculous software size, complexity, bloat...etc. Maybe. But what is bloat? Apps written in Electron are easier to maintain and update despite the underlying platform being huge. I'd say it is because Electron solves a lot of small problems for you, but perhaps it is also because people give up on some things. Electron apps don't have the theming support that Winamp did, but adding real time streaming support for audio/video takes months instead of years, and has become table stakes in the modern world instead of an amazing differentiator. I'm not really sure where I stand on all this anymore. :)
beagle3 9y ago
kOS from http://kparc.com http://kparc.com boots on metal, has a workable GUI, network, file system, text editor, database, programming language and a few other bells and whistles, in less than 500KB uncompressed. No, it doesn't have accessibility or internationalization, but I suspect if it did (by the same people) it would not be much larger beyond the inherent complexity - e.g. Unicode directionality and glyph data; or sound waveforms for text to speech. Most of the size of modern software, OS included, is accidental
- feelin_googley 9y ago
  Which particular metal has been tested? I would like to buy that metal now. Are they making this compliant with the multiboot specification so the user can use her own choice of bootloader? If it is ARM, which bootloader are they using?
  - beagle3 9y ago
    Some asus model iirc; user geocar on HN is actually involved with the project, I believe - I'm just following progress.
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  For those not aware, this is a bare-metal system for the k-language which is what you use with the kdb+ database system. It allows the user to program in an array based language (ASCI APL descendent) so they can write very terse and fairly fast programs with a GUI and when kOS comes out it wont need a traditional OS. The fintech industry pays kdb+ developers quite well. The entire language is probably only a few pages of C too as Arthur Whitney is a genius and his last language was like that. The only issue i have is it is really expensive and closed source.

wolfgke 9y ago

> Instead, something far far simpler than even Linux. Who said that Linux is simple?

throwaway7645 9y ago
Good point. I guess in comparison to Windows.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  If you want an "academically fair" (e.g. only compare parts that implement related functionality) comparison for Linux (the kernel!), you should compare it to ntdll.dll+hal.dll (these implement the kernel; cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Windows_library_files&oldid=797308581#Internal_components https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Windows...). Here I think Linux would not be fare better (in terms of size) against Windows. You say this is (from a practical perspective) an unfair comparison for Linux, since under Linux, your applications can (in principle) call the kernel directly, while under Windows, they are linked against the subsystem that one wants to use - so one has to include the subsystem, too. I agree here - but this already makes a comparison much harder, since there is no related concept to "subsystem" under GNU/Linux. Indeed what people describe as "bloated" under Windows is not the kernel itself, but the perhaps Windows subsystem and even more the immense amount of intertwined components that are installed by default on a Windows installation. So a more fair comparison (from practical considerations) for Windows against GNU/Linux in terms of size would be a minimal system with which you can work properly and is supported by some vendor (to exclude some really experimental hacks of some Linux nerds which are really small in size, but not suitable for proper work). For Linux one can surely find such a configuration. For Windows the proper configuration to choose is "Windows Server 2016" in the "Server Core" or even "Nano Core" configuration: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Server_Core&oldid=797310098 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Server_Core&oldid... Here I am sure the Linux sample would still be smaller than the "Server Core"/"Nano Core" installation of Windows Server - but Microsoft has learned their lesson that there exist users who want a really slicked down Server version of Windows and has delivered.

wolfgke 9y ago

> http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm http://www.ultratechnology.com/moore4th.htm > https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/geek-of-the-week/chuck-moore-on-the-lost-art-of-keeping-it-simple/ https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/geek-of-the-wee... For a different perspective on Forth and Chuck Moore read > http://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.html http://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.... (also read the comments).