From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <353097f40f2449ca8e926155cfc09c2d@9srv.net>
From: rt@anothy.9srv.net
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] 'wall' messages
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0310072149250.4102-100000@einstein.ssz.com>
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Date: Wed,  8 Oct 2003 10:46:04 -0400
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i confess i don't remember whhat jmk's proposal was. however...

note brucee said "knowing about" not "running". using the plumber
(or something like the one-off system-message-notifier we did for
Inferno) the OS doesn't have to possess any special knowledge of
*anything* to enable this. in everything you've described, the
shell, the OS, rio, other apps, or some combination thereof have
to have special-purpose logic built in, and would likely require
some knowledge of each other (you'd need to build the "registration
service" or whatever).

the point of things like not including a terminal driver in the
windowing system, or not putting an editor in the shell, wasn't as
much about putting complexity "in the right place" (i believe) as
not having it there at all. to quote one of the brightest things
boyd ever said (here, at least):
 missing components don't make mistakes, are secure, and
 don't need testing, documentation, or maintenance.
paraphrasing Gordon Bell, who said it even better:
 The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those
 that arn't there.

we can do a "wall" without kernel hacks, without touching any
existing apps, and with a minimum of new code.
=E3=82=A2