4 ms·
The problem isn't so much Unix, but rather that we have largely failed to evolve it since the days of AT&T System III. The Bell Labs people kept working on Rese
by vezzy-fnord 11y ago
The problem isn't so much Unix, but rather that we have largely failed to evolve it since the days of AT&T System III. The Bell Labs people kept working on Research Unix up to V9 with plenty of great features (like V9 IPC streams) that were never replicated anywhere else, before moving on to the ultimate culmination of these ideas in the form of Plan 9 and Inferno.
Meanwhile Linux has always been a boring SysV Unix clone that only occasionally ripped some features (and in a questionable manner) like procfs, sysfs, epoll, signalfd so you don't have to do the self-pipe trick, inotify, cgroups and namespaces. Stuff that competing systems often did much better.
The BSDs have been quicker to do more novel things, but by far the only two modern Unices to get the memo are DragonFly BSD and Solaris/illumos.
- SixSigma 11y agoIt is an interesting side note that Richard Miller, who hacks on Plan 9, was part of the Taos OS scene.
- akkartik 11y agoEven more interesting that he was on the frontpage just last night! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9801745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9801745
- SixSigma 11y agoAh, I bet that explains it. People follow the subject and post the things they find. I wonder how long it will be before the turtle pokes its head out? http://cyberneticzoo.com/cyberneticanimals/1969-the-logo-turtle-seymour-papert-marvin-minsky-et-al-american/ http://cyberneticzoo.com/cyberneticanimals/1969-the-logo-tur... I was waxing lyrical at the Plan9 conference to Richard who I have known for a few years about how amazing the turtle and Logo is/was for classrooms because it could engage with a wider range of children than trying to teach them programming because it stimulated those maybe interested in programming, art, robotics, languages and maths with teamwork and communication skills and even just watching things happening. Imagine my pleasure when he said "I'm glad you appreciate it" and went on to tell me the story of developing it when I had no idea!
- akkartik 11y agoWait, what?! Can you illuminate the intervening breadcrumbs? Edit: wow, he's everywhere.
- SixSigma 11y agoI was updating with my personal breadcrumbs when you replied. Richard was a colleague of mine - the plan9 scene leads very quickly to luminaries - I have had the privilege of meeting some very talented programmers who are humble so one day you will be on a webpage and go "gosh, I know that guy"
- akkartik 11y agoI'd love to chat more if you'd be willing to drop me a line. My email address is in my profile. Too bad I'm too late for the plan9 scene. I'm fascinated to find this long-running nexus between OS hacking and teaching programming, because that's kinda what I've been up to lately and I've worried some that it bespeaks a lack of focus.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- david-given 11y agoGo look at Genode, one of the most exciting things in OS development I've seen for a long time: http://genode.org/documentation/general-overview/index http://genode.org/documentation/general-overview/index It's a secure microkernelly capability-based OS where each process is basically a virtualised hypervisor; it can run a conventional OS as a user process, but it's also got a Unix-like native personality if you want it. I believe it's nearly self-hosting.