Re: [9fans] recreational programming of an evening

[Bakul Shah <bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com>]

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:03:14 EDT "Devon H. O'Dell" <devon.odell@gmail.com>  wrote:
> 2010/3/21 Bakul Shah <bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com>:
> [snip]
> > What's really missing is a whole book on hands on OS hacking
> > along the lines of the Art of Electronics or SICP (Structure
> > and Interpretation of Computer Programs).  And with a kit of
> > h/w & i/o devices so that you can build some widgets and
> > give'em a real OS!
>
> I've wanted to do something like this for a while, but it's hard to
> find a publisher for such a thing.

Go for it!

These days you can self publish or put it on the web.  Or
post your tentative Table of Contents here and may be it can
turn into a cooperative effort.

A web based "book" can be pretty interactive and flexible.
For example, it can start assuming the readers have a plan9
virtual machine with your teaching package so they can
experiment right away.  Then they can explore plan9 in any
direction they want (to learn OS concepts by experimenting,
or "move up" to build apps or interface with other apps, or
"move down" to add device drivers or replace some kernel
parts, or "further down" to bare metal, to move to real h/w
and add some h/w devices).

One project I have been interested in (but lack time for) is
to build a h/w building block that speaks P9 (instead of just
a low level USB interface).  Given that one can add h/w for a
specific purpose, add a bit of glue logic and can make the
new h/w functionality easily available from plan9.  Such a
thing can be a great boon to hobbyists and scientists alike,
as they can stop worrying about low level computer interface
details and spend time on things *they* want to spend time
on.  And make them want to learn plan9, which is where your
book can come in!