Re: [9fans] Using the Acme Editor

[Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com>]

> No, that's not what I said. I said that Plan 9 obeys the UNIX philosophy,
> not that it was UNIX. GNU obeys this philosophy (up to the point of where
> to draw the lines on the size of tools). And to some extent, Windows
> (Windows Movie Maker doesn't call up another computer now, does it?)

I guess "the UNIX philosophy"--whatever that vague phrase is supposed to 
mean--contains "the X philosophy." The core dictum goes: "mechanism, not 
policy." That is, they give you the "femur," you determine its use. Russ 
Cox knows this better; he's the one at the MIT. "The Plan 9 philosophy" 
goes as far as telling you to "not ask for a ruler" in your text editor 
(ruler in vi := a pair of numbers; column, row).

> Mac, and I use OS X Mail (so I can get my hands on IMAP's folder system).
> How about the fact that Simon was able to give you a trademark symbol? Do
> yourself a favor: YOU test it. Look in /lib/keyboard for some characters
> and send them here. If they come back as sent, you've proven my point.
> Otherwise, you found a bug.

Plan 9 is not _my_ pet OS. 9people, and you who are too young to be a 
9person, are taking pride in "UTF-8." That's been the gesture for a over a 
decade. Now, it's old, it's insignificant, and Plan 9 doesn't even deliver. 
Anyway, _you_ made a claim. You have to prove it. I don't even run Plan 9 
anymore. Gave it up.

Steve Simon's trademark character, I presume, was generated by 
[Alt]+0153--you call [Alt] an "Option" key, right? Well below 255, it's 
just extended/8-bit ASCII. Not right-to-left, not even out of ISO 8859. You 
could generate that character even on MS-DOS.

Though, his email's header says the charset if UTF-8. No big deal.

> 	gopherfs -m/n/gopher tokyo.ac.jp		# Demonstration; don't try this
> 	motorola -m/n/cell -M 'RAZR V3' 555 555 5555
> 	cp /n/gopher/a/b/r.tokyo.jpg /n/cell/pictures/r.tokyo.jpg

Zing! Who wrote the fs behind /n/cell? You got Morotola to write it for you?

$ curl gopher://tokyo.ac.jp/a/b/r.tokyo.jpg
$ ifconfig cellnetif num "555 555 5555"
$ mount -t motofs /dev/cellnetif /mnt/cell
$ cp ./r.tokyo.jpg /mnt/cell/

(You gotta use an archaic version of curl. Gopher support was removed when 
mammoths roamed the Earth)

Of course, motofs and cellnetif are imaginary, just like your "motorola." 
The problem is the same on UNIX and Plan 9, but on UNIX it is much more 
likely that you find someone who solved it before. And it is much less 
likely that someone tells you it isn't "the way to do it."

Incidentally, someone I know has recently bought a Motorola A1200 that runs 
a nice tiny Linux.

> Write that in sockets. Since that is what you use, don't you?

Write that in Plan 9 system calls. That is what _you_ use, don't you?

The fs's are only abstraction layers. You could implement them on _any_ 
system. Given you were dour enough to do it. Writing a particular fs is a 
problem. Plan 9 doesn't make it any more trivial. Oh, don't tell me it's 
got 9P. 9P could be any text-based protocol. What's the difference between 
9P-over-IP and HTTP? Or SOAP? Or XML-WS?

> Good riddance. But you're missing a wonderful opportunity. Just open your
> eyes.

"Thank you."

--On Tuesday, August 19, 2008 8:30 PM -0400 Pietro Gagliardi 
<pietro10@mac.com> wrote:

> On Aug 19, 2008, at 7:51 PM, Eris Discordia wrote:
>>> Plan 9 obeys the UNIX way: tools that make jobs simpler.
>>
>> A UNIX better than UNIX? I thought that was just the thing 9people
>> claimed to be past. Didn't I hear someone saying, "Plan 9 is not
>> UNIX?" Ahem... GNU's Not UNIX, too, nah?
>
> No, that's not what I said. I said that Plan 9 obeys the UNIX philosophy,
> not that it was UNIX. GNU obeys this philosophy (up to the point of where
> to draw the lines on the size of tools). And to some extent, Windows
> (Windows Movie Maker doesn't call up another computer now, does it?)
>
>>> "Everything is a UTF-8 [...]"
>>
>> Do me a favor. Fire up your beloved upas, use mail, and relay one
>> email through upas/smtpd to smtp.gmail.com:587 with the words
>> "שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם" (Hebrew, Shalom aleichem) or
>> "سلام علیکم" (Arabic, Salam-on alaikom) to my address. Let's
>> see if "the mail goes through."
>>
>
> Mac, and I use OS X Mail (so I can get my hands on IMAP's folder system).
> How about the fact that Simon was able to give you a trademark symbol? Do
> yourself a favor: YOU test it. Look in /lib/keyboard for some characters
> and send them here. If they come back as sent, you've proven my point.
> Otherwise, you found a bug.
>
>>> "Everything is a UTF-8 text file or a mountable filesystem, even
>>> devices
>>> and severs" encourages transparency of modules: you can copy a file
>>> from
>>> a Gopher network in Tokyo to a mobile phone from Mexico or have the
>>> filesystem report how much free space is left without running a
>>> million
>>> commands or typing a thousand lines of code.
>>
>> The path from Gopher to your PC--or it was a Mac that you had?--was
>> paved years ago on UNIX. Then the path from Tokyo to Mexico was
>> built on UNIX, and today it _runs_ on UNIX. Now, the real problem
>> begins when you want to get your cell phone to talk 9P-over-IP.
>>
>> Do you have a 9P client for your cell phone? You "wrote" it already?
>> Does it run on Java? Or Symbian? Or Vendor X's proprietary embedded
>> OS? Did you do it on Plan 9? Or did you snatch an SDK written for
>> some other livelier OS?
>>
>> Go fool someone else with your empty rhetoric, buddy.
>>
>
> My rhetoric is not empty. I am not saying go ahead and write that 9P. I'm
> saying the jobs are trivial, only three lines of rc:
>
> 	gopherfs -m/n/gopher tokyo.ac.jp		# Demonstration; don't try this
> 	motorola -m/n/cell -M 'RAZR V3' 555 555 5555
> 	cp /n/gopher/a/b/r.tokyo.jpg /n/cell/pictures/r.tokyo.jpg
>
> Write that in sockets. Since that is what you use, don't you?
>
> As for filesystem usage,
>
> 	echo fsys all df | con -l /srv/fscons
>
> Go look up the source for GNU df, and tell me if it's that simple.
>
>>> If you are not like that, leave.
>>
>> No, I _am_ not like that. I also _don't_ like that. And I've left.
>> The post was not for you to chew on, it was for the benefit of the
>> thread's originator.
>>
>
> Good riddance. But you're missing a wonderful opportunity. Just open your
> eyes.
>
> On Aug 19, 2008, at 8:10 PM, Eris Discordia wrote:
>
>> What exactly do you Get Done (tm) on Plan 9? I mean, aren't there
>> easier ways to do it? If yes, staying on Plan 9 is simply "fanity"--
>> a la vanity-- and "fanity" is beyond reason; my reason, at least. If
>> no, how come your job's so specific that can't be done on much more
>> widely used systems? Probably it's just 1-3.
>
> - Programming in userland: mainly compiler design, along with a few other
> projects.
> - Document typesetting (I love troff). That's not on your list, is it?
> - Goofing off: lots of free games
>
> The point of this all?
>
> Plan 9 is not JUST a research system. It is a complete operating system.
> It has great tools for making greater tools, or for just increasing (or
> decreasing) your productivity. If you're too blunt to care, fuck off.
> You've done that to us already, on many occasions.
>
>