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Well: * the cloud re-invented timesharing * big data gave us distributed databases * crypto had a tryst with distributed databases at the Timeshare Suites an

Well: * the cloud re-invented timesharing * big data gave us distributed databases * crypto had a tryst with distributed databases at the Timeshare Suites and begat blockchain I'm unsure whether I'm refuting of agreeing with The Famous Article.

rektide 5y ago
Notably just about zero of what you've mentioned is apparent or directly empowering to users. They have better services at their disposal as a result of these systems developments, but almost no users have more personal.xontrol, are better aware & more capable of relliantly doing computing than they had been. In my view we've only made users dependent & less capable, we've given up all ideas of systems to the cult of the application. Many many black boxes, all unalike. The blockchain crazyshit is perhapa regardable somewhat as an exception, but it's stupid fucking crazy expensive & polluting to do anything, and you basically need to be 20x smarter than the average programmer to not footgun yourself. In principle i want to try to allow it as promuser innovative & systems oriented but it's such a totalized system of constraint & restriction, such a low low low resource world compared to even having a pentium1 & dsl connection, that I dont see it as meaningfully ennabling.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Systems research is about technology not about empowering so and so.
  - rektide 5y ago
    as counter example to your premise, icd cite projects like Node-RED or Yahoo Pipes. These are little micro-os like systems, environmemts for cobbling together computing. They're higher level than what we might often think of, but they are easily im domain to me at least. And they're definitely about empowering! It's a fault that more systems research isnt about finding more userhfaving abstractions. Naked Objects environments. Oberon. Good abstractions & systems dont just have to be for developers.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Users don't attend USENIX, IEEE or ACM conferences.
      - rektide 5y ago
        Very chicken & egg to me! I believe strongly in systems software research. Not just tuning systems & hunting for more throughput or other gains, but making malleable base abstractions & exposing them. Making new means to operate. In this way, I agree with Pike: systems research often consigns itself to irrelevance. It should be bolder & more visible & more real. I'll confess I think you're closer to what most people think of. But I also think there's a lack of words ideas & concepts of trying to better ground computing, and I think that work falls into the systems research bucket. And it's not active enough. We're kind of stuck. We are seeing some good systems work, but mainstream computing breached up on the shore 20 years ago & it's this discipline that needs to be the one helping shake us loose & getting us into more novel, useful paradigms of computing. The projects I listed- Yahoo Pipes, Node-RED, Oberon, Naked Objects- we need more big scale tries & there aren't enough.

rektide 5y ago

Notably just about zero of what you've mentioned is apparent or directly empowering to users. They have better services at their disposal as a result of these systems developments, but almost no users have more personal.xontrol, are better aware & more capable of relliantly doing computing than they had been. In my view we've only made users dependent & less capable, we've given up all ideas of systems to the cult of the application. Many many black boxes, all unalike. The blockchain crazyshit is perhapa regardable somewhat as an exception, but it's stupid fucking crazy expensive & polluting to do anything, and you basically need to be 20x smarter than the average programmer to not footgun yourself. In principle i want to try to allow it as promuser innovative & systems oriented but it's such a totalized system of constraint & restriction, such a low low low resource world compared to even having a pentium1 & dsl connection, that I dont see it as meaningfully ennabling.

pjmlp 5y ago
Systems research is about technology not about empowering so and so.
- rektide 5y ago
  as counter example to your premise, icd cite projects like Node-RED or Yahoo Pipes. These are little micro-os like systems, environmemts for cobbling together computing. They're higher level than what we might often think of, but they are easily im domain to me at least. And they're definitely about empowering! It's a fault that more systems research isnt about finding more userhfaving abstractions. Naked Objects environments. Oberon. Good abstractions & systems dont just have to be for developers.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Users don't attend USENIX, IEEE or ACM conferences.
    - rektide 5y ago
      Very chicken & egg to me! I believe strongly in systems software research. Not just tuning systems & hunting for more throughput or other gains, but making malleable base abstractions & exposing them. Making new means to operate. In this way, I agree with Pike: systems research often consigns itself to irrelevance. It should be bolder & more visible & more real. I'll confess I think you're closer to what most people think of. But I also think there's a lack of words ideas & concepts of trying to better ground computing, and I think that work falls into the systems research bucket. And it's not active enough. We're kind of stuck. We are seeing some good systems work, but mainstream computing breached up on the shore 20 years ago & it's this discipline that needs to be the one helping shake us loose & getting us into more novel, useful paradigms of computing. The projects I listed- Yahoo Pipes, Node-RED, Oberon, Naked Objects- we need more big scale tries & there aren't enough.