3 ms·

How feasible would it be to defer string processing to the operating system so that the behavior of all software running on it is the same? Perhaps a new OS int

by chaz6 5y ago

How feasible would it be to defer string processing to the operating system so that the behavior of all software running on it is the same? Perhaps a new OS interface could be defined for this purpose using syscalls on Linux. At the very least, there should be one canonical set of algorithms per operating system, rather than everyone downstream reinventing the wheel. Please forgive me if this sounds absurd, I am not a low-level programmer.

anonymoushn 5y ago
I certainly don't want to pay for a syscall to do string encoding. Also, a lot of the time the problem isn't that people are using fundamentally incompatible string libraries, but that there isn't one correct answer to the question they're asking and they chose different ways to convert the question into code. A reasonable question to ask is "How many extended grapheme clusters are in this string?" The answer is "It depends on what font you plan to use to render it." Not great! Some programmers would still like to e.g. write a reverse() function that returns ":regional_indicator_f::regional_indicator_r:" unmodified (because it is the French flag emoji) and returns ":regional_indicator_i::regional_indicator_h:" when given ":regional_indicator_h::regional_indicator_i:". If such people want to avoid having nonsensical behavior in their programs, the only solution available is to decide what domain the program should work on and actually deal with the complexity of the domain chosen.
ShrigmaMale 5y ago
Because string processing is not slow enough? Making string operations eat the performance impact of that context switch in and out of kernel is not a good idea. Library is better. This is not string but I'm thinking to some language like Rust where the "time" crate is not language feature but just about standard and all the other library use it. This is possible if a library like it is good quality and exist early in the language.

by chaz6 5y ago

anonymoushn 5y ago

I certainly don't want to pay for a syscall to do string encoding. Also, a lot of the time the problem isn't that people are using fundamentally incompatible string libraries, but that there isn't one correct answer to the question they're asking and they chose different ways to convert the question into code. A reasonable question to ask is "How many extended grapheme clusters are in this string?" The answer is "It depends on what font you plan to use to render it." Not great! Some programmers would still like to e.g. write a reverse() function that returns ":regional_indicator_f::regional_indicator_r:" unmodified (because it is the French flag emoji) and returns ":regional_indicator_i::regional_indicator_h:" when given ":regional_indicator_h::regional_indicator_i:". If such people want to avoid having nonsensical behavior in their programs, the only solution available is to decide what domain the program should work on and actually deal with the complexity of the domain chosen.

ShrigmaMale 5y ago

Because string processing is not slow enough? Making string operations eat the performance impact of that context switch in and out of kernel is not a good idea. Library is better. This is not string but I'm thinking to some language like Rust where the "time" crate is not language feature but just about standard and all the other library use it. This is possible if a library like it is good quality and exist early in the language.