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"Don't forget that Linux became only possible because 20 years of OS research was carefully studied, analyzed, discussed and thrown away." — Ingo Molnar http

"Don't forget that Linux became only possible because 20 years of OS research was carefully studied, analyzed, discussed and thrown away." — Ingo Molnar http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9906.0/0746.html http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9906.0/0746.ht... to the Linux Kernel mailing list in 1999.

inter_netuser 5y ago
link broken?
- sp332 5y ago
  It's cited from https://quotepark.com/quotes/1742017/history/ https://quotepark.com/quotes/1742017/history/ but probably rotted some time in the last 23 years. Edit: here's a live mirror. http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9906.0/0746.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9906.0/0746.html
fit2rule 5y ago
Hey now, the full quote is a little cheekier: > platitudes hardly provide compelling evidence for ignoring 20 years > of networking/OS research and architecting unnecessary copies into the. > core of an OS that wants to be taken seriously... dont forget that Linux became only possible because 20 years of OS research was carefully studied, analyzed, discussed and thrown away. -- mingo<endquote> .. don't you go ignoring the fact he was talking about zero-copy in the kernel!
numbsafari 5y ago
This is how I feel about the Go programming language. So often you see people ranting about the Go team either being ignorant or scornful of PL research. I always wonder if those same people are Agile Manifesto zealots at work.
- dodobirdlord 5y ago
  Well, those critiques are not unfounded. The designers of Go are certainly not ignorant of the last few decades of PL research, but they did make a deliberate decision to ignore it and create (they admit!) an inferior language for skilled practitioners, in the interest of being maximally accessible to newer programmers who are only familiar with imperative languages with C-like syntax. > "The key point here is our programmers are Googlers, they’re not researchers. They’re typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt. – Rob Pike" > "It must be familiar, roughly C-like. Programmers working at Google are early in their careers and are most familiar with procedural languages, particularly from the C family. The need to get programmers productive quickly in a new language means that the language cannot be too radical. – Rob Pike" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16143918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16143918 If you're interested in a critique that goes more deeply into Go's actual design flaws, as opposed to its deliberate design tradeoffs, I enjoy https://fasterthanli.me/articles/i-want-off-mr-golangs-wild-ride https://fasterthanli.me/articles/i-want-off-mr-golangs-wild-....
Quarrel 5y ago
Thanks for that. What a great thread supporting the choices that Linus & the core team made at the time, given the hindsight we now have. I'm not sure I would have agreed with Linus in '99 (and I was doing a Phd in the OS networking space then!). Your bigger picture quote is great too. In academia it is easy to get yourself stuck in local minima, unable to see the better path beyond the hill of similar research surrounding you.

inter_netuser 5y ago

link broken?

sp332 5y ago
It's cited from https://quotepark.com/quotes/1742017/history/ https://quotepark.com/quotes/1742017/history/ but probably rotted some time in the last 23 years. Edit: here's a live mirror. http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9906.0/0746.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9906.0/0746.html

fit2rule 5y ago

Hey now, the full quote is a little cheekier: > platitudes hardly provide compelling evidence for ignoring 20 years > of networking/OS research and architecting unnecessary copies into the. > core of an OS that wants to be taken seriously... dont forget that Linux became only possible because 20 years of OS research was carefully studied, analyzed, discussed and thrown away. -- mingo<endquote> .. don't you go ignoring the fact he was talking about zero-copy in the kernel!

numbsafari 5y ago

This is how I feel about the Go programming language. So often you see people ranting about the Go team either being ignorant or scornful of PL research. I always wonder if those same people are Agile Manifesto zealots at work.

dodobirdlord 5y ago
Well, those critiques are not unfounded. The designers of Go are certainly not ignorant of the last few decades of PL research, but they did make a deliberate decision to ignore it and create (they admit!) an inferior language for skilled practitioners, in the interest of being maximally accessible to newer programmers who are only familiar with imperative languages with C-like syntax. > "The key point here is our programmers are Googlers, they’re not researchers. They’re typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt. – Rob Pike" > "It must be familiar, roughly C-like. Programmers working at Google are early in their careers and are most familiar with procedural languages, particularly from the C family. The need to get programmers productive quickly in a new language means that the language cannot be too radical. – Rob Pike" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16143918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16143918 If you're interested in a critique that goes more deeply into Go's actual design flaws, as opposed to its deliberate design tradeoffs, I enjoy https://fasterthanli.me/articles/i-want-off-mr-golangs-wild-ride https://fasterthanli.me/articles/i-want-off-mr-golangs-wild-....

Quarrel 5y ago

Thanks for that. What a great thread supporting the choices that Linus & the core team made at the time, given the hindsight we now have. I'm not sure I would have agreed with Linus in '99 (and I was doing a Phd in the OS networking space then!). Your bigger picture quote is great too. In academia it is easy to get yourself stuck in local minima, unable to see the better path beyond the hill of similar research surrounding you.