From: Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Subject: Re: [9fans] a bit OT, programming style question
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 23:34:03 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3F6B6589F529BEAECE105A71@[192.168.1.2]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <f4bcca89873b39417c1ed6561a9e3ef5@quanstro.net>
> this is the "space-shuttle dichotomy." it's a false one. it's a
> continuum. its ends are dangerous.
So somewhere in the middle is the golden mean? I have no objections to
that. *BSD systems very well represent a silver, if not a golden,
mean--just my idea, of course.
> it is interesting to me that some software manages to run off both
> ends of this continuum at the same time. in linux your termcap
> from 1981 will still work, but software written to access /sys last
> year is likely out-of-date.
While I won't vouch for Linux as a good OS (user-land and kernel combined)
I understand what you see as its eccentricity is merely a side-effect of
openness. Tighten the development up and you get a BSD-style system
(committer/contributor/maintainer/grunt/user highest-to-lowest ranking,
with a demiurge position for Theo de Raadt). Tighten it even further up
with in-ken shared among a core group of old-timers and thoroughbreds
transmitted only to serious researchers and you get Plan 9.
You are right, after all. It all lies on a continuum. Actually, more
tightly regulated Linux distros such as Slackware readily demonstrate that;
they easily beat all-out all-open distros like Fedora (whose existence is
probably perceived at Red Hat as a big brainstorming project).
> your insinuation that *bsd is a real serious system and plan 9 is
> a research system doesn't make any historical sense to me. they
> both started as research systems. i am not aware of any law that
> prevents a system that started as a research project from becoming
> a serious production system.
What I am insinuating is more like this: any serious system will sooner or
later have to grow warts and/or contract herpes. That's an unavoidable
consequence of social life. If you do insist that Plan 9 has no warts, or
far less warts than the average, or that it has never seen a cold sore on
its upper lip then I'll happily conclude it has never lived socially. And I
haven't really ever used Plan 9 or "been into it." The no-herpes indicator
is that strong.
> i know of many thousands of plan 9 systems in production right
> now.
Good for you. Honestly.
--On Thursday, April 09, 2009 11:06 AM -0400 erik quanstrom
<quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> On Thu Apr 9 10:48:08 EDT 2009, eris.discordia@gmail.com wrote:
>> Most of it in the 19 lines for one TERMCAP variable. Strictly a relic of
>> the past kept with all good intentions: backward compatibility, and
>> heeding
>
> [...]
>
>> Quite a considerable portion of UNIX-like systems, FreeBSD in this case,
>> is the way it is not because the developers are stupid, rather because
>> they have a "constituency" to tend to. They aren't carefree researchers
>> with high ambitions.
>
> this is the "space-shuttle dichotomy." it's a false one. it's a
> continuum. its ends are dangerous.
>
> on the one hand, if you change things, the new things are likely
> to be buggy. on the space shuttle, this is bad. people die.
>
> on the other hand, systems are not perfect. and if the problems
> are not addressed, eventually the system will need to much fixing
> and will be abandoned.
>
> yet bringing a new system on line is an even bigger risk. everything
> is new simultaneously.
>
> it is interesting to me that some software manages to run off both
> ends of this continuum at the same time. in linux your termcap
> from 1981 will still work, but software written to access /sys last
> year is likely out-of-date.
>
> your insinuation that *bsd is a real serious system and plan 9 is
> a research system doesn't make any historical sense to me. they
> both started as research systems. i am not aware of any law that
> prevents a system that started as a research project from becoming
> a serious production system.
>
> i know of many thousands of plan 9 systems in production right
> now.
>
> - erik
>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2009-04-09 22:34 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 40+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-04-07 5:32 Corey
2009-04-07 5:39 ` erik quanstrom
2009-04-07 7:53 ` sqweek
2009-04-07 7:28 ` Eris Discordia
[not found] ` <3AB58E51F3A5C561C4B065E3@192.168.1.2>
2009-04-07 14:31 ` sqweek
2009-04-07 15:09 ` ron minnich
2009-04-07 18:21 ` Eris Discordia
[not found] ` <A297371273CD8D67A21A921E@192.168.1.2>
2009-04-07 19:57 ` J.R. Mauro
2009-04-08 1:48 ` Eris Discordia
2009-04-08 2:53 ` erik quanstrom
[not found] ` <A411EFAE2566F856F3034B12@192.168.1.2>
2009-04-08 3:04 ` J.R. Mauro
2009-04-09 13:44 ` Eris Discordia
2009-04-09 15:06 ` erik quanstrom
2009-04-09 22:34 ` Eris Discordia [this message]
2009-04-10 16:15 ` john
2009-04-17 13:07 ` Balwinder S Dheeman
2009-04-17 13:28 ` erik quanstrom
2009-04-17 13:42 ` Devon H. O'Dell
[not found] ` <3F6B6589F529BEAECE105A71@192.168.1.2>
2009-04-10 19:35 ` J.R. Mauro
[not found] ` <5EF90081E9B1D745047218E6@192.168.1.2>
2009-04-09 17:32 ` J.R. Mauro
2009-04-09 18:10 ` Charles Forsyth
2009-04-09 18:28 ` Richard Miller
2009-04-09 19:28 ` Devon H. O'Dell
2009-04-09 19:31 ` erik quanstrom
2009-04-09 19:34 ` J.R. Mauro
2009-04-09 22:09 ` Eris Discordia
[not found] ` <58ADE353D7158CD35973F13B@192.168.1.2>
2009-04-10 19:33 ` J.R. Mauro
2009-04-11 11:13 ` Eris Discordia
2009-04-09 21:01 ` Richard Miller
2009-04-09 21:28 ` Bakul Shah
2009-04-09 21:34 ` J.R. Mauro
2009-04-09 22:16 ` erik quanstrom
2009-04-09 22:37 ` Devon H. O'Dell
2009-04-09 22:05 ` Eris Discordia
2009-04-07 15:08 ` ron minnich
2009-04-07 16:05 ` Corey
2009-04-07 16:44 ` ron minnich
2009-04-07 18:34 ` erik quanstrom
2009-04-07 22:50 ` dave.l
2009-04-07 22:56 ` erik quanstrom
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