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Occam's Razor says that we should prefer simpler explanations to more complex ones with the same explanatory power. That is, we should prefer explanations which
by astine 14y ago
Occam's Razor says that we should prefer simpler explanations to more complex ones with the same explanatory power. That is, we should prefer explanations which don't raise more questions than they answer.
This has nothing to do with the engineering 'KISS' principle which desires simpler architectures because they are easier to understand and thereby to debug and maintain. The point is to avoid astronaut architecture, which is what you get when you chase theoretical ideas rather practical solutions. Linus's whole point is that microkernels are a prime example of astronaut architecture.
- dxbydt 14y agoThere is nothing astronaut-ty or theoretical about microkernels. For eg, QNX is a fairly successful, practical microkernel, its what your BlackBerry runs on. If anything, microkernels are one of the most practical ways to approach OS design. You strip the kernel to its bare minimum and do everything else in usermode via IPC. It so turns out in practice that the performance costs of IPC is much more than making a direct syscall in a monolithic kernel, but that is just today's state of the art. As IPC performance improves & monolithic kernel KLOCs explode, you will see microkernels making a strong comeback, especially on mobile. Wait and see.
- jbooth 14y ago"As IPC performance improves & monolithic kernel KLOCs explode" 1991 called. They told you to keep waiting. If you have to write way more code to hack around the message passing performance, you haven't simplified anything.