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So for those of you also oblivious to what Plan 9 is since the repo readme seems to make no mention of that. It’s a distributed operating system, developed by

So for those of you also oblivious to what Plan 9 is since the repo readme seems to make no mention of that. It’s a distributed operating system, developed by Bell, as a replacement for Unix, as per Wikipedia [0] [0]: https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs Edit: It might be also important and relevant as fao kindly pointed out to mention that it's "developed by the original authors of UNIX"

fao_ 5y ago
Not just "developed by Bell", but developed by the original authors of UNIX. Everything gets an overhaul. Dennis Richie and Pike clean up C -- hell, even make(1) gets a complete makeover in mk(1), after 30 years of talking with users and having to use it. From the perspective of software development, UNIX is the "build one to throw away" version. Plan9 is UNIX on steroids.
- ahoka 5y ago
  I think it's more like "Second system effect."
  - the-dude 5y ago
    Both terms are from The Mythical Man Month. Are you saying Plan 9 is over-engineered and bloated? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month https://herbertograca.com/2018/11/19/11-plan-to-throw-one-away/ https://herbertograca.com/2018/11/19/11-plan-to-throw-one-aw... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect
  - ObscureScience 5y ago
    I don't think Plan9 "failed" because of any technical reason, such at failing to realizing over ambitious goals. It was a research project which worked out very well from what I can see.
  - glangdale 5y ago
    Plan 9 is definitely not a second system from UNIX; the aspects of it that failed are not due to over-complexity. Far from it. Plan 9 failed for a combination of reasons: 1) Gratuitous NIH: the whole lack of support for a POSIX runtime, C++ compiler, etc. meant you couldn't run "normal programs" on it. So no web browser, no access to the gigantic pile of programs that run everywhere else. There was a project called "APE" (The ANSI Posix Environment) but it was never really kept up to date. What this meant was first, you couldn't run stuff like a web browser on Plan 9 (and you still can't; please no-one write to inform me that some dweebish half-assed attempt at a web browser is a solution), so you were always using other machines, and second, the design of the system was never impacted by the idea of running "Lots of Software Written By Other People". It's pretty easy to decide you don't need shared libraries, for example, when your graphics/UI library is written by one guy. 2) The assumptions made about hardware went rapidly wrong: the gap between "CPU servers" and the thin-client-ish things you logged on to were substantial at the time; this assumption went out of date rather rapidly with the explosion of fast PC hardware. Similarly, "everything is a file" based windowing/graphics systems ("/dev/bltblt") started to look nutty with 3D acceleration. Many of the things that looked great in 1992 started to look kinda weird in by 1998. 3) Somewhat related: it never was entirely clear what Plan 9 was for. People keep calling it a research OS, but aside from the early 'research-ish' ideas, I don't think there was a lot of actual research. It was sort of more a "daily driver that won't go" (see point 1). There wasn't a whole lot of reevaluation of design decisions either (point 2). There were some really good ideas in it, right from its inception, but calling it a research OS is weird.
    - a-dub 5y ago
      > it never was entirely clear what Plan 9 was for. People keep calling it a research OS, but aside from the early 'research-ish' ideas, I don't think there was a lot of actual research. It was sort of more a "daily driver that won't go" (see point 1). There wasn't a whole lot of reevaluation of design decisions either (point 2). There were some really good ideas in it, right from its inception, but calling it a research OS is weird. i always thought it was just a proof of concept for the filesystem they built which was a networkish extension of the original unix ideal (everything on the network is a file)? seems kinda researchy. it was also good for blowing up some crt displays as the video drivers often tried to drive them with unsupported modes. was cool that it fit on a few floppies though. i think it was a tech demo.
  - fao_ 5y ago
    I'm not really sure how that applies here. Apparently Brooks describes this as: An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used 'next time.' Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. (https://wiki.c2.com/?SecondSystemEffect) But this is not really the case. Since UNIX went through at least two revisions of the basic design in the first stage. Furthermore, Plan9 outright meets all the design goals of the system, and is a genuine improvement on UNIX as a concept. Rob Pike admitted the only reason he stopped using it was because he wasn't interested in porting all of his software to it (And ran Acme in a virtual machine for a very long time while working at Google -- I seem to recall?). Much of the Plan9 software was ported to UNIX, and as I understand it a number of the creators still use parts of it to this day, as much as they are able to.
  - kjs3 5y ago
    That would be System V (or even System III), not Plan 9.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    According to the Art of Unix programming, Multics was the second-system after CTSS, Unix the third, leaving Plan 9 the fourth.
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      If Multics was the second what was the first?
      - skissane 5y ago
        CTSS is the first system, Multics is the second. CTSS is kind of the great-grand-daddy of operating systems. As well as influencing Unix (via Multics), it also had a lot of influence on DEC operating systems and IBM mainframe operating systems (in particular CP/CMS which evolved into VM/CMS and now z/VM). You can even trace Windows as having ancestry from CTSS via multiple historical paths (CTSS -> Multics -> Unix -> Xenix -> DOS 2.0 -> Windows; CTSS -> CP/CMS -> CP/M -> DOS 1.0 -> DOS 2.0 -> Windows; there's probably even some CTSS heritage in VMS and VMS in-turn influenced Windows NT)
deleted 5y ago
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fao_ 5y ago

Not just "developed by Bell", but developed by the original authors of UNIX. Everything gets an overhaul. Dennis Richie and Pike clean up C -- hell, even make(1) gets a complete makeover in mk(1), after 30 years of talking with users and having to use it. From the perspective of software development, UNIX is the "build one to throw away" version. Plan9 is UNIX on steroids.

ahoka 5y ago
I think it's more like "Second system effect."
- the-dude 5y ago
  Both terms are from The Mythical Man Month. Are you saying Plan 9 is over-engineered and bloated? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month https://herbertograca.com/2018/11/19/11-plan-to-throw-one-away/ https://herbertograca.com/2018/11/19/11-plan-to-throw-one-aw... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect
- ObscureScience 5y ago
  I don't think Plan9 "failed" because of any technical reason, such at failing to realizing over ambitious goals. It was a research project which worked out very well from what I can see.
- glangdale 5y ago
  Plan 9 is definitely not a second system from UNIX; the aspects of it that failed are not due to over-complexity. Far from it. Plan 9 failed for a combination of reasons: 1) Gratuitous NIH: the whole lack of support for a POSIX runtime, C++ compiler, etc. meant you couldn't run "normal programs" on it. So no web browser, no access to the gigantic pile of programs that run everywhere else. There was a project called "APE" (The ANSI Posix Environment) but it was never really kept up to date. What this meant was first, you couldn't run stuff like a web browser on Plan 9 (and you still can't; please no-one write to inform me that some dweebish half-assed attempt at a web browser is a solution), so you were always using other machines, and second, the design of the system was never impacted by the idea of running "Lots of Software Written By Other People". It's pretty easy to decide you don't need shared libraries, for example, when your graphics/UI library is written by one guy. 2) The assumptions made about hardware went rapidly wrong: the gap between "CPU servers" and the thin-client-ish things you logged on to were substantial at the time; this assumption went out of date rather rapidly with the explosion of fast PC hardware. Similarly, "everything is a file" based windowing/graphics systems ("/dev/bltblt") started to look nutty with 3D acceleration. Many of the things that looked great in 1992 started to look kinda weird in by 1998. 3) Somewhat related: it never was entirely clear what Plan 9 was for. People keep calling it a research OS, but aside from the early 'research-ish' ideas, I don't think there was a lot of actual research. It was sort of more a "daily driver that won't go" (see point 1). There wasn't a whole lot of reevaluation of design decisions either (point 2). There were some really good ideas in it, right from its inception, but calling it a research OS is weird.
  - a-dub 5y ago
    > it never was entirely clear what Plan 9 was for. People keep calling it a research OS, but aside from the early 'research-ish' ideas, I don't think there was a lot of actual research. It was sort of more a "daily driver that won't go" (see point 1). There wasn't a whole lot of reevaluation of design decisions either (point 2). There were some really good ideas in it, right from its inception, but calling it a research OS is weird. i always thought it was just a proof of concept for the filesystem they built which was a networkish extension of the original unix ideal (everything on the network is a file)? seems kinda researchy. it was also good for blowing up some crt displays as the video drivers often tried to drive them with unsupported modes. was cool that it fit on a few floppies though. i think it was a tech demo.
- fao_ 5y ago
  I'm not really sure how that applies here. Apparently Brooks describes this as: An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used 'next time.' Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. (https://wiki.c2.com/?SecondSystemEffect) But this is not really the case. Since UNIX went through at least two revisions of the basic design in the first stage. Furthermore, Plan9 outright meets all the design goals of the system, and is a genuine improvement on UNIX as a concept. Rob Pike admitted the only reason he stopped using it was because he wasn't interested in porting all of his software to it (And ran Acme in a virtual machine for a very long time while working at Google -- I seem to recall?). Much of the Plan9 software was ported to UNIX, and as I understand it a number of the creators still use parts of it to this day, as much as they are able to.
- kjs3 5y ago
  That would be System V (or even System III), not Plan 9.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  According to the Art of Unix programming, Multics was the second-system after CTSS, Unix the third, leaving Plan 9 the fourth.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    If Multics was the second what was the first?
    - skissane 5y ago
      CTSS is the first system, Multics is the second. CTSS is kind of the great-grand-daddy of operating systems. As well as influencing Unix (via Multics), it also had a lot of influence on DEC operating systems and IBM mainframe operating systems (in particular CP/CMS which evolved into VM/CMS and now z/VM). You can even trace Windows as having ancestry from CTSS via multiple historical paths (CTSS -> Multics -> Unix -> Xenix -> DOS 2.0 -> Windows; CTSS -> CP/CMS -> CP/M -> DOS 1.0 -> DOS 2.0 -> Windows; there's probably even some CTSS heritage in VMS and VMS in-turn influenced Windows NT)

deleted 5y ago

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