4 ms·

My general take from observing their culture is dogmatic vs pragmatic. plan9 and go are dogmatic, they exist because the status quo is bad and something must be

My general take from observing their culture is dogmatic vs pragmatic. plan9 and go are dogmatic, they exist because the status quo is bad and something must be done. This is not to say their ideas are bad! Some of them are great but many of the great ones are brought into the mainstream thru unix (procfs, utf-8) and C (unnamed substructures) :) I just wished they focused on making the mainstream better instead of this more indirect route...

p9idf 14y ago
>[Plan 9 exists] because the status quo is bad and something must be done. That's a strange way to describe research and experimentation (though not strictly incorrect). >I just wished they focused on making the mainstream better Plan 9 predates all of today's mainstream operating systems.
- cokernel_hacker 14y ago
  > That's a strange way to describe research and experimentation (though not strictly incorrect). Many of the modern OS research papers that I have read take an existing solution and mess with it. As an example, many file system papers take ext[34] or btrfs and do something to them (if we want to debate this statement, we can). I see this with replacement algorithms, packet schedulers, etc. Much experimentation happens but it is usually in the context of Linux or FreeBSD or some other popular existing solution these days. There are papers that buck this more conventional approach like barrelfish and singularity and exokernels and L4 etc. etc. etc. I do not think they are the status quo and I am/was not saying that plan9 is a bad thing, let me be clear on that. >Plan 9 predates all of today's mainstream operating systems. This is said with enough certainty without being true that I am allergic to it. All? Plan 9 started in the late 80's [1] OS X/iOS is a mach derivative which is circa 1985. The NT OS/2 project which begat modern Windows was started in 1988. BSD? All descendants of BSD which first released in 1977. Rob Pike complains about BSD's "cat -v" in the early 80's. Maybe you are using "predate" with a different connotation but I don't know which. At the very best* it co-existed with the others. [1] http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html
  - p9idf 14y ago
    Your point is not clear to me.
    - cokernel_hacker 14y ago
      The good ideas taken from plan9 aren't isolated to it and could have been fostered outside of it, perhaps speeding up adoption of those ideas.
      - p9idf 14y ago
        I'm more interested in ideas themselves than details about how they're marketed. Plan 9 and its novelties are well known and published in detail. The authors of Linux, BSD, OSX, and NT are aware of Plan 9 and decided it wasn't worth imitating. What could be gained by wasting time lobbying to change their minds? They care only for what they and their customers want, and the average Joes that Microsoft and Apple sell operating systems to aren't exactly clamouring for them to be more like Plan 9. If you like an idea, then adopt it yourself. If not everyone shares your taste in operating system architecture, that's alright too.
        codewright 14y ago
        A lack of interest in marketing is partly why you don't have a plan9-esque userspace available to you by default.
        p9idf 14y ago
        I do have Plan 9 programs available to me be default, when I install Plan 9. If other people don't choose to do that, so what. I'm not a missionary. Research operating systems aren't a secret. The masses evidently aren't that interested. Everything you can do with Plan 9 you can do with any other system anyways, only it's marginally more tedious. If people can tolerate that, that's alright with me. What should I care how the masses do their computing? Why should I pester people about it? I don't go around arguing to people how great it is to be a pro-skub star-bellied sneech who eats their bread butter side down. Operating system evangelism and holy wars are older than the internet, and I have become very tired of them.
enneff 14y ago
> I just wished they focused on making the mainstream better instead of this more indirect route... We're working on making Go a mainstream language.
4ad 14y ago
Procfs in Linux is completely different compared to the Plan 9 one (or 8th edition Unix for that matter) both in internal organization and in it's purpose and scope.

p9idf 14y ago

>[Plan 9 exists] because the status quo is bad and something must be done. That's a strange way to describe research and experimentation (though not strictly incorrect). >I just wished they focused on making the mainstream better Plan 9 predates all of today's mainstream operating systems.

cokernel_hacker 14y ago
> That's a strange way to describe research and experimentation (though not strictly incorrect). Many of the modern OS research papers that I have read take an existing solution and mess with it. As an example, many file system papers take ext[34] or btrfs and do something to them (if we want to debate this statement, we can). I see this with replacement algorithms, packet schedulers, etc. Much experimentation happens but it is usually in the context of Linux or FreeBSD or some other popular existing solution these days. There are papers that buck this more conventional approach like barrelfish and singularity and exokernels and L4 etc. etc. etc. I do not think they are the status quo and I am/was not saying that plan9 is a bad thing, let me be clear on that. >Plan 9 predates all of today's mainstream operating systems. This is said with enough certainty without being true that I am allergic to it. All? Plan 9 started in the late 80's [1] OS X/iOS is a mach derivative which is circa 1985. The NT OS/2 project which begat modern Windows was started in 1988. BSD? All descendants of BSD which first released in 1977. Rob Pike complains about BSD's "cat -v" in the early 80's. Maybe you are using "predate" with a different connotation but I don't know which. At the very best* it co-existed with the others. [1] http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html
- p9idf 14y ago
  Your point is not clear to me.
  - cokernel_hacker 14y ago
    The good ideas taken from plan9 aren't isolated to it and could have been fostered outside of it, perhaps speeding up adoption of those ideas.
    - p9idf 14y ago
      I'm more interested in ideas themselves than details about how they're marketed. Plan 9 and its novelties are well known and published in detail. The authors of Linux, BSD, OSX, and NT are aware of Plan 9 and decided it wasn't worth imitating. What could be gained by wasting time lobbying to change their minds? They care only for what they and their customers want, and the average Joes that Microsoft and Apple sell operating systems to aren't exactly clamouring for them to be more like Plan 9. If you like an idea, then adopt it yourself. If not everyone shares your taste in operating system architecture, that's alright too.
      - codewright 14y ago
        A lack of interest in marketing is partly why you don't have a plan9-esque userspace available to you by default.
        p9idf 14y ago
        I do have Plan 9 programs available to me be default, when I install Plan 9. If other people don't choose to do that, so what. I'm not a missionary. Research operating systems aren't a secret. The masses evidently aren't that interested. Everything you can do with Plan 9 you can do with any other system anyways, only it's marginally more tedious. If people can tolerate that, that's alright with me. What should I care how the masses do their computing? Why should I pester people about it? I don't go around arguing to people how great it is to be a pro-skub star-bellied sneech who eats their bread butter side down. Operating system evangelism and holy wars are older than the internet, and I have become very tired of them.

enneff 14y ago

> I just wished they focused on making the mainstream better instead of this more indirect route... We're working on making Go a mainstream language.

4ad 14y ago

Procfs in Linux is completely different compared to the Plan 9 one (or 8th edition Unix for that matter) both in internal organization and in it's purpose and scope.