Re: [9fans] Mars Needs Women (was Re: TeX: hurrah!)

["Patrick Kelly" <kameo76890@gmail.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: 9fans-bounces@9fans.net [mailto:9fans-bounces@9fans.net] On Behalf Of Corey
> Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2010 5:39 AM
> To: 9fans@9fans.net
> Subject: Re: [9fans] Mars Needs Women (was Re: TeX: hurrah!)
> 
> 
> I appreciate your time and consideration in your responses, thanks!
> 
> You made several points and asked several questions this email, however it's difficult for me to answer them because they appear to
> be put forth under the idea that "Plan X's" purpose is to natively host common popular consumer-level, end-user applications of
> various sorts under Plan 9, and/or to port gnu to Plan 9.
> 
> There also seemed to be a lingering impression that I'm suggesting that Plan 9 proper - the official distro - should be subject to the
> changes proposed by "Plan X".
> 
> However I think it's crucial that the current official Plan 9 distro continue as it always has. And I don't personally see enough value in
> the notion of gnu gcc and autotools being ported, or firefox and gtk, etc..

I don't see any value at all. This makes me wonder why you bring up...
 
> I do see  value in porting LLVM/Clang, which would help enable, for instance, a forked  and customized _subset_ of the EFL core
> libraries (not the E wm), ported and running like a native Plan 9 citizen via /dev/draw instead of X.

Could you elaborate? While looking into the LLVM's source, several times, is mostly garbled crud (although better than GCC), and they severely over-optimize.
I also don't understand why one would choose the EFL? It's not even stable yet.

Unless my memory fails me, the EFL was in C++. I could be wrong on this though.

You're basically asking to re-write a compiler and libraries, and call them a port. I'm not sure I understand what you're thinking.

> I'm imagining an alternative Plan 9 distro that jettisons just a couple select characteristics of the system which drastically increase the
> net sum total alien'ness that tends to obfuscate and/or divert attention away from (what I believe to be) the more important aspects
> of the Plan 9 experience, such as the ones I listed previously:
>
> * 9P
> * mutable namespaces
> * union directories
> * ubiquitous fileservers
> * transparent distributed services
> 
> Slightly more POSIX - but not total POSIX compliance - in addition to a non-gnu compiler that supports modern standard C dialects and
> other C-based languages would be an enabler for a greater number of people hoping to apply Plan 9 concepts under a broader and
> more general variety of purposes.

This I don't understand at all. Why would one need a separate Plan 9 distribution? Why don't you improve APE, and write compilers for the languages you need? There is no need for a fork.
 
> But even all that begins to miss the original attempted point of my first post: the idea that perhaps it could be beneficial if there were
> some means for interested Plan 9 fans to rationally discuss and speculate on different potential expressions of Plan 9 based operating
> systems.
>
> Attempting to do so here on 9fans continues to be a traditional source of agitation and flames, tempered with a healthy dose of shut
> up and code. (that's not an accusation or scornful judgment, just a statement of a "thing").

Yes, well no one codes. It's not so much shut up, as it is, stop asking us to do it.

A good building isn't designed by slapping any good idea into it. A good bridge isn't either. Good medicine isn't created by putting any chemical that helps in. They are engineered for ideal effectiveness. Plan 9 is in many ways, the same. All we ask for, is a reason why what people want to add is a good thing. Just simple rationale.

You're a free being and free to do as you please, no one is stopping you.
 
> I thought that perhaps talking in terms of what "a 'Plan X' _might_ look like" would be less divisive/threatening than talking in terms of
> what "Plan 9 ought or ought not become".
> 
> 
> Cheers