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* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-06-30 19:12 Eris Discordia
  2008-06-30 20:01 ` ron minnich
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-06-30 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Hi 9fans,

I'm writing this in an "open letter" style because I find eric's original
post and the follow-up quite "on-topic" with respect to my unsuccessful
Plan 9 experience. To provide context, let me describe myself as a "serious
hobbyist," which means I know my way around Windows and at least 2 other
(UNIX-like) OS's--I can set up a reasonably secure sendmail and BIND
installation, write a little Perl or C program to do my bidding, and
wouldn't gawk at you if you talked about using xmllint to check a
document's well-formedness but I'm not a kernel "hacker" or a "hacker" of
any sort for that matter. I can Get My Personal Job Done (tm) but you
wouldn't hire me as an admin.

When I downloaded the Plan 9 4e ISO image I thought to myself "one more OS
adventure." It turned out to be a very frustrating one. Plan 9 wouldn't
work fine, or work at all, on a number of freeware virtualization platforms
which I am "sure" weren't especially rigged to run the other OS's they
happened to run fine. It eventually worked on QEMU. Since I'm a "serious"
hobbyist "bad" installation experience is hardly a deterrent to me--not
anymore.

When I came to actually "use" Plan 9 I found out the two interfaces I'd
heard about, i.e. rc and rio, are both awkward despite how everybody on
9fans thought they were such glorious climaxes of simplicity and usability
and how everybody would bash Bash. If I were to save one interface (textual
or graphical) out of all interfaces that exist today that'd be Bash.
Perhaps I'm a brainwashed FSF zombie in thinking so but I am once again
"sure" rc or rio won't even be on my top ten list and that's no FSF zombie
attitude.

Some 9fans members may remember my original zeal to participate in 9fans
and learn about Plan 9. That zeal was subdued when I went through the first
few chapters of Francisco Ballesteros' fine book. Since then I've only been
quietly reading 9fans posts and "not" using Plan 9.

I believe this reasoning from Eris Raymond's "The Art of UNIX Programming"
(a book that is more than a little on the snob side, by the way) is mutatis
mutandis appropriate:

"The long view of history may tell a different story, but in 2003 it looks
like Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a compelling
enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor. Compared to Plan 9,
Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust spots, but it gets the job done
well enough to hold its position. There is a lesson here for ambitious
system architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an
existing codebase that is just good enough."

--20.2 Plan 9: The Way the Future Was

Let me say that Plan 9 didn't seem to me, as a user and not a "hacker," to
even cover any meaningful "rust spots," for example, of FreeBSD. Rio is
actually a failure despite whatever the 9fans people and Rob Pike may say.
Fossil/Venti, however brilliant it may look like to the code junkie, does
not offer anything for me but added complexity. Plan 9 neither fulfills
previous functions nor defines new ones for any "end user" or even
"hobbyist," except perhaps the most sturdy of them. It is probably a
wonderful research platform for computer science students but it cannot and
will not support even the simpler tasks a student of, say, mathematics
expects of their PC these days, e.g. symbolically solving an equation
system (without going through implementing or porting a computer algebra
system or learning some twisted Lisp, of course). Good software--to a
mathematics student--like Maple will never become available on Plan 9, as
it did on Linux, and for the third time I am "sure" this isn't because
Maplesoft has any special affiliation with the Linux people. It's simply
because Plan 9 is not the user's OS, it isn't even the geek's OS, or the
nerd's OS, it is only the CS/CE OS Design student's OS, with a little
margin kept to accommodate a few sturdy geeks and professionals interested
in special applications.

In fact, I suspect Bell/Lucent made Plan 9 publicly available because they
found no better use for it. Plan 9 was not released to the public, instead
"jettisoned" into the public's care. Of course, this "accusation" of mine
remains as undocumented as any conspiracy theory but I'm inclined to
believe it.

No one should wonder why Plan 9 isn't remembered or used even in such geeky
communities as Slashdot. It just isn't "our" kind of OS and by "us" I mean
lowlifes like me in contrast to the "grand exalted" Plan 9 user.

Best wishes,
Eris Discordia

P.S. Heck, this "is" some sad commentary.



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* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-07-01  8:42 Eris Discordia
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-07-01  8:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

You've misread me. I'm far from understanding which facilities Plan 9
provides for "ron minnich," the CS/CE person. I should be able of finding
facilities it provides for "me," the lowlife. Or I'd dump it as an option
for Getting My Job Done (tm), as did many before me. No public recognition
of Plan 9 lies in that direction.

In passing, I may actually be able to figure out how to cope with your
"challenge." That wouldn't change Plan 9's status as a "niche" OS, however.
I happen to know that Plan 9 presents a network transparent environment, so
trying out a C compiler at plan9.bell-labs.com shouldn't be any harder than
trying it out at the local machine which is incidentally much harder to
grasp "conceptually" than the same task performed on FreeBSD because
network transparency involves additional layers of abstraction whether you
admit it or not. A stand-alone Plan 9 system amounts in conceptual
complexity "for the user" to at least three interconnected machines. Very
little has been done to cover that.

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 5:22 PM -0700 ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Eris Discordia
> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Not a very kind comment. Though, it is possible that it's true.
>>
>> What was there for me to understand about Plan 9 that I did not? Barring
>> a "mystical" bond with its exquisite kernel, of course.
>>
>
> Let's pretend I want to try out the C compilers at
> plan9.bell-labs.com. i want to see what they do, maybe differently
> than my local ones do.
>
> How do you do that?
>
> ron
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-07-01  8:28 Eris Discordia
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-07-01  8:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

I have "never" done "any" kernel programming or any "major" programming. I
thought I said that on my original post. That line was to be taken
tongue-in-cheek. It meant that I, as a user, shouldn't need to actually
"read code" to appreciate what Plan 9 has to offer.

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 8:23 PM -0300 Iruata Souza <iru.muzgo@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Eris Discordia
> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Barring a "mystical" bond with its exquisite kernel, of course.
>>
>
> it seems you have done much kernel programming, eh?
>
> iru
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-07-01  8:25 Eris Discordia
  2008-07-02  4:52 ` lucio
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-07-01  8:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

> Having said that, but for web browsing, I'm quite
> happy using Plan 9 as an end user that mostly writes code, slides, and
> docs and reads mail. I mean, I use it not just to modify it. This does not
> mean I cannot use others as well.

It's fine, if you're fine with it ;-) Do you ever visit any AJAX enabled
websites? Do you consider AJAX a superfluous technology? Do you switch to
your "other OS" machine--or reboot your current machine--if and when you
visit GMail's pages (at least to enable IMAP access for the first time)?
What's your opinion on good ol' non-standard CSS? Won't you ever want to
use one of these new "content delivery" systems, such as Microsoft
Silverlight or Adobe Flash?

Do you sometimes need to write an XML document? Do you need to validate it?
Do you need to transform it? Are you going to write or port each and every
application you need for doing so?

All these could "theoretically" become "supported" (that's different from
being "included") in an OS if it manages to gather enough public momentum.
Without that you can do only your "serious" stuff which excludes quite some
of the "good" stuff. Public momentum comes from providing "the public" with
enough incentive so that a small portion of that public actually writes
what the rest will need.

Incidentally, I find it a bit hypocritical to do "research" (read: find out
how a system can Get New Jobs Done (tm)) on a system but turn to another
whenever one actually needs to Get Something Done (tm).

--On Tuesday, July 01, 2008 1:17 AM +0200 Francisco J Ballesteros
<nemo@lsub.org> wrote:

> Many of the ideas have been/will be applied to other
> systems, and that will affects end users as well. It's just that there's
> no need to use the same system for doing research and for, say,
> browsing the web.
>
> Having said that, but for web browsing, I'm quite
> happy using Plan 9 as an end user that mostly writes code, slides, and
> docs and reads mail. I mean, I use it not just to modify it. This does not
> mean I cannot use others as well.
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-07-01  7:47 Eris Discordia
  2008-07-01 13:15 ` john
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-07-01  7:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

> You clearly have a very particular, narrow idea of what a "user" is, and
> a very muddy idea of how research works.

Could be, but you sayign it amounts to ad hominem, right?

> a very muddy idea of how research works. Obviously getting an optical
> jukebox isn't practical for Joe Public sitting in his flat, but it makes
> great sense for lots of users in larger settings. Perhaps more to the

Joe Public? Not even a SOHO affair or a startup will have a jukebox. Not
even a normal university campus will have one (though, CS/CE/EE "labs" may
be exceptions). It's not worth the effort and the price. Magnetic (e.g.
hard disk), solid-state (e.g. NAND Flash), and "conventional" optical (e.g.
a CD/DVD-R in a drive or at most a duplicator machine) is so "cheap" no one
will think of using a jukebox.

By the way, that's only an "example" of how far fetched the Plan 9 paradigm
is to the normal user--who "isn't" Joe Public for the most part.

> Put another way: the topic under research wasn't "how do we provide the
> backup functionality people are asking for?", but "how would having daily
> dumps change the way you work? would that be useful?". It's a less
> product- oriented set of questions, but produces more fundamental results.
>
> // Plan 9 seems to be a "niche" OS, as I pointed out before.
>
> That may well be true, or at least that it isn't mainstream and
> mass-market. That's never been its objective, and I'm sorry if you wasted
> your time based on misunderstanding that.

Fine with me. Did those "fundamental" results end in "visible" results that
people could enjoy? If yes, then no need to complain about "people" not
recognizing your system; if no, revise your goals or don't complain about
the lack of recognition. Those who "can" appreciate fundamental results are
already doing so, e.g. Russ Cox and a handful of other top-notch CS people
in a handful of top-notch universities. My "open letter" was written from a
lowlife's standpoint.

> // UTF-8 in an English-only "user" paradigm is only extravagance.
>
> We've got enough folks around here who use something other than English
> as their primary language with their computer that this complaing falls
> down. You're right that there's more research to be done here, such as on
> right-to-left input methods and composing characters, but that's far from
> the same thing.

Are your non-English-speaking people capable of doing their research paper
in some localized TeX/troff/groff/[some other typesetting software]
version, or writing an email in their native tongue? Or reading their
non-English non-Latin email? Or properly indexing their set of non-English
documents using a simple search? "Without innocence, the cross is only
idol." Without applications "features" are only burden.

> If the UI model doesn't work for you, well, that's a shame, I guess. Based
> on the bash love from earlier posts, I'm going to hazard a guess that your
> complaints are largely based on the old keyboard vs. mouse argument. I
> doubt hauling out the old references would be convincing once you've
> already made up your mind.

On the contrary, while I do like using keyboard I'm very much a "polymath."
Mouses are very good input devices for certain applications. The way the
mouse is used--or "abused"--in rio and acme poses a problem. It is the
"easy way out" to attribute that to my--probably Windows-doped--taste.
There "is" a least common denominator that accommodates the basics of all
tastes, and "that" is lacking in rio.

Window decorations (as they're called in X-speak) are not "mere
decorations," they're useful. The two button (+/- wheel) mouse is prevalent
because for most people only the index and middle finger are robust enough.
The ring finger is never on par with them, except of course with the
unnecessary adjustment Plan 9 users seem to go through. Assigning the
middle finger to both second and third buttons is another solution which is
equally uncomfortable.

Microsoft certainly has put a lot of money into researching human
interfacing and the outcome is free for all to get and implement. Don't
think for a moment that because it's Microsoft it has to be taken lightly.
Hundreds of small rounded corners have made the Windows GUI experience a
much better experience than that of "any" alternative GUI.

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 7:07 PM -0400 a@9srv.net wrote:

> // Systems research? Did you actually "research" how a normal user used
> their  // computer? Did you even try to guess how a normal user used
> their system?  // Did you do that and end up with a technical manual
> whose prime example for  // backup strategy involves a "Jukebox?"
>
> You clearly have a very particular, narrow idea of what a "user" is, and
> a very muddy idea of how research works. Obviously getting an optical
> jukebox isn't practical for Joe Public sitting in his flat, but it makes
> great sense for lots of users in larger settings. Perhaps more to the
> point, experience with fs(4) led pretty directly to the current
> construction of fs(3), fossil(4), and venti(6) - all of which are much
> more suitabe for Joe.
>
> Put another way: the topic under research wasn't "how do we provide the
> backup functionality people are asking for?", but "how would having daily
> dumps change the way you work? would that be useful?". It's a less
> product- oriented set of questions, but produces more fundamental results.
>
> // Plan 9 seems to be a "niche" OS, as I pointed out before.
>
> That may well be true, or at least that it isn't mainstream and
> mass-market. That's never been its objective, and I'm sorry if you wasted
> your time based on misunderstanding that.
>
> // UTF-8 in an English-only "user" paradigm is only extravagance.
>
> We've got enough folks around here who use something other than English
> as their primary language with their computer that this complaing falls
> down. You're right that there's more research to be done here, such as on
> right-to-left input methods and composing characters, but that's far from
> the same thing.
>
> If the UI model doesn't work for you, well, that's a shame, I guess. Based
> on the bash love from earlier posts, I'm going to hazard a guess that your
> complaints are largely based on the old keyboard vs. mouse argument. I
> doubt hauling out the old references would be convincing once you've
> already made up your mind.
> Anthony
>
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
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* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-07-01  7:04 Eris Discordia
  2008-07-01 14:06 ` cummij
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-07-01  7:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

> it seems like you are avoiding the point on purpose.

No purpose I'm aware of :-)

> i don't think you can pick up a kernel with tweezers and make
> a bunch of abstract statements about it.  and so i think the fact
> that unicode may be used anywhere a character is expected in plan9
> does have a lot to do with the system's functionality.

Unicode is mainly about being able to represent "human" written word. Its
availability is no use if the data being passed around will be just fine as
an octet stream. To my meager understanding, there's a classification of a
computer system's functions that puts "encoding text" along with
"representing text" and into the realm of "applications" and not "systems."
Hence my claim that UTF-8 adds not to "OS functions," while it may improve
"application functionality."

> what do you base this claim on?  i'm pretty sure that the fonts
> distributed with the system are enough to support japanese, greek,
> and russian, to name only the ones i can think of quickly

I asked for clarification on the point and said that I may be mistaken.
Though, I'm still not sure I'll be able to successfully view a Russian web
page. Do you think that's feasible? What about Hebrew, Arabic, or Persian?

> there is not.  perhaps this is something you could contribute.

Spare me. I'm no "hacker," I want to Get My Personal Job Done (tm). In
fact, that was my main point; lowlifes like me will use your system if it
can Get Their Job Done (tm) or they'll migrate to another system that can.
They won't bother coding.

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 6:56 PM -0400 erik quanstrom
<quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:

>> The fact the UTF-8 was first "implemented" on Plan 9 has nothing to do
>> with  Plan 9's funtionality as an OS.
>
> it seems like you are avoiding the point on purpose.
>
> i don't think you can pick up a kernel with tweezers and make
> a bunch of abstract statements about it.  and so i think the fact
> that unicode may be used anywhere a character is expected in plan9
> does have a lot to do with the system's functionality.
>
>> If the availability of UTF-8 is an advantage, the absence of a single
>> Unicode font in the system useful for non-Latin languages is a very
>> strong  disadvantage.
>
> what do you base this claim on?  i'm pretty sure that the fonts
> distributed with the system are enough to support japanese, greek,
> and russian, to name only the ones i can think of quickly
>
> and i am certain that code2000 and cyberbit which are available
> on sources provide some of the best unicode coverage for free fonts.
> they're not great fonts nor do they have total coverage, but no
> fonts do.
>
>> I even doubt there's a "simple" way of inputting, say, Hebrew
>> or Arabic in Plan 9. It'll be kind of you to clarify that point for me
>> if  I'm mistaken.
>
> there is not.  perhaps this is something you could contribute.
>
> - erik
>
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-07-01  6:47 Eris Discordia
  2008-07-01  7:42 ` John Stalker
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-07-01  6:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

> Not true. The ability to adapt the system quickly in response to a
> changing standards situation made a critical difference in having
> UTF-8 rather than a weaker proposal accepted by X/Open and hence ISO.

Plan 9's "historical" role is not in question. That same book I quoted in
my original post says that the /proc filesystem in FreeBSD is modelled
after Plan 9's totally generic approach to representing a running system
and its resources. Fine, but not "on-topic." There're many research
platforms--some we've heard of, some we've not--whose innovations are
"backported" into production systems but that doesn't make those platforms
useful to the general user.

> Plan 9 is not for end users.  Plan 9 is for programmers.

Which types of programmers?

1. Casual programmers, e.g. an admin who finds out a few lines of code
could lighten their burden

2. Programmers in need of a dirty-but-quick solution, e.g. a prototype

3. Hobby programmers, i.e. those who learn out of curiosity and aren't
"forced" to remain loyal to a specific system's quirks and general edginess

4. Reluctant programmers, i.e. those who aren't programmers per se but need
to write one program in the course of solving another--probably
non-computerish--problem

5. Ueberprogrammers, e.g. those who write one new OS in each circadian cycle

6. Plain vanilla programmers, i.e. people whose "job" revolves around
programming computers most of whom have to develop codebases of their
predecessors and are stuck with whatever the original designers thought was
best be it a Plan 9 "mod" or whatever

7. Abstract computer science programmers, i.e. those who want to test and
profile right here right now that brand new hybrid of stack, trie, and
tuatara they've thought up

If Plan 9 is really an OS only for people of types (5) and (6), and some of
(2), well then my statement is true that "Plan 9 is a 'niche' OS." No one
should wonder why it isn't more widely used or even remembered in less
"elite" circles.

Best wishes,
Eris Discordia

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 3:48 PM -0700 Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:

>     The fact the UTF-8 was first "implemented" on Plan 9 has nothing
> to do with Plan 9's funtionality as an OS.
> Not true. The ability to adapt the system quickly in response to a
> changing standards situation made a critical difference in having
> UTF-8 rather than a weaker proposal accepted by X/Open and hence ISO.
>
>     The question is what new function Plan 9, as an OS, defines for
> the end user.
> Plan 9 is not for end users.  Plan 9 is for programmers.
>
> -rob
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
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* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-06-30 22:32 Eris Discordia
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-06-30 22:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

> crap methodology versus doing something clever under the hood.  You
> can't be a success unless you have an animated 3D GUI consuming most
> of your CPU resources and expending all sorts of power.

That couldn't be farther from truth, at least in my case. No one wants to
waste their computer's time :-) Yet, when it comes to choose between
wasting their time or that of their computer's then most normal people will
go for the latter.

I'm a regular Windows user. My Windows installation has been reduced to
bare minimum. It runs fine and hell it really can compete with any of the
top dogs in desktop applications. And when it comes to running a DNS
server, well, there's FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

Where is the incentive for someone other than a CS/CE OS Design/Research
student (or the like) who's a vested interest in learning "exotic OS's" to
switch to Plan 9? Plan 9 seems to be a "niche" OS, as I pointed out before.

> We should have spent the last 20 years working on movie-OS versus actually
> trying to do systems research.

Systems research? Did you actually "research" how a normal user used their
computer? Did you even try to guess how a normal user used their system?
Did you do that and end up with a technical manual whose prime example for
backup strategy involves a "Jukebox?" Systems research, as you know it,
provides a student/researcher/professor/professional with academic credit,
three meals a day, and a place to sleep--it won't Get the Users' Job Done
(tm).

Best wishes,
Eris Discordia

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 3:55 PM -0500 Eric Van Hensbergen
<ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Skip Tavakkolian <9nut@9netics.com>
> wrote:
>>>
>>> P.S. Heck, this "is" some sad commentary.
>>
>> what's sad is that unless there's a dummy's guide to
>> something, that something is not considered a success.
>>
>
> Its worse than that Skip -- I imagine many would rank Apple's time
> machine greater than venti just because it puts a pretty GUI on top of
> crap methodology versus doing something clever under the hood.  You
> can't be a success unless you have an animated 3D GUI consuming most
> of your CPU resources and expending all sorts of power.  We should
> have spent the last 20 years working on movie-OS versus actually
> trying to do systems research.
>
>        -eric
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-06-30 22:13 Eris Discordia
  2008-06-30 22:48 ` Rob Pike
                   ` (4 more replies)
  0 siblings, 5 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-06-30 22:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

> this blog-style opinion piece does not offer anything constructive.
> for example, would utf-8 qualify as a functionality that didn't exist
> before plan9?

The fact the UTF-8 was first "implemented" on Plan 9 has nothing to do with
Plan 9's funtionality as an OS. Similarly, the fact that Windows is "still"
the best platform if you need to do word processing in many languages has
nothing to do with its comparatively low performance with many
applications--an important OS functionality it lacks.

FreeBSD's very good process scheduling, which manifests to a user like me
in not having to worry about a non-responsive system in case a process is
poorly performing, "is" an OS funtionality.

If the availability of UTF-8 is an advantage, the absence of a single
Unicode font in the system useful for non-Latin languages is a very strong
disadvantage. UTF-8 in an English-only "user" paradigm is only
extravagance. I even doubt there's a "simple" way of inputting, say, Hebrew
or Arabic in Plan 9. It'll be kind of you to clarify that point for me if
I'm mistaken.

> what's sad is that unless there's a dummy's guide to
> something, that something is not considered a success.

The question is what new function Plan 9, as an OS, defines for the end
user. Does it enable me of doing something Windows doesn't? Does it enable
me of doing something better than I could do on FreeBSD? Does its default
GUI even match Windows in ease of use (read: switching to another window,
killing the window you're running, doing a simple copy without typing in
regexps/wildcards, et cetera)?

By the way, I provided a description of my person to avoid "dummy" labels.
I may well be a "dummy" in your league but that doesn't mean I'm unable of
reading a normal technical manual. I can do and have done that, on Linux,
FreeBSD, and Plan 9.

And success, by definition, doesn't need an apology. When there's an
apology there must have been a measure of failure.

Best wishes,
Eris Discordia

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 1:42 PM -0700 Skip Tavakkolian
<9nut@9netics.com> wrote:

>> Plan 9 neither fulfills
>> previous functions nor defines new ones for any "end user" or even
>> "hobbyist," except perhaps the most sturdy of them.
>
> this blog-style opinion piece does not offer anything constructive.
> for example, would utf-8 qualify as a functionality that didn't exist
> before plan9?
>
> there are many plan9 ideas that have been adopted by other os --
> though the results often are Frankenstein-esque.
>
>> Eris Discordia
>>
>> P.S. Heck, this "is" some sad commentary.
>
> what's sad is that unless there's a dummy's guide to
> something, that something is not considered a success.
>
> -Skip
>
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-06-30 21:45 Eris Discordia
  2008-07-01 15:40 ` michael block
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 134+ messages in thread
From: Eris Discordia @ 2008-06-30 21:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs

A very effective "backup" method for work on your "desktop:"

1. Organize your "creative work" when you "create" them, plan beforehand

2. Copy/synchronize the collection to an external hard disk and/or a
solid-state storage device which you detach from your "desktop" computer
after you turn it off, repeat this step depending on how heavily you modify
the work, automate using cron (or Task Scheduler if you're on Windows)

3. Copy the entire collection to optical media every once in a while, store
the copy in a safe place

Pros: safer than you'd expect, no additional learning curve, cheap,
platform independent
Cons: takes a little more "backup awareness"

Notes:

a. This does not apply to your work in a highly networked
corporate/university environment. In those places backup practice should be
determined by systems administrators and/or pertaining policies, which are
of course none of your business unless you're the admin.

b. If your data happens to be quite a lot of source code it should be
stored in a version control system which may provide its own backup
measures. The version of SourceSafe that came with Visual Studio 6.0
Enterprise Edition did that back many years ago. With (now almost obsolete)
RCS backing up should be as simple as tarring one or more directories. CVS
and/or SVN shouldn't pose any harder problems.

c. Most real-world "user generated" data doesn't need the fine grained
"restoration" options envisioned in Fossil/Venti. Few people ever need
every single copy Fossil/Venti has to offer of the novel they're writing or
the Maple worksheet they're editting.

Best wishes,
Eris Discordia

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 3:11 PM -0500 michael block
<michaelmuffin@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Eris Discordia
> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Fossil/Venti, however brilliant it may look like to the code junkie, does
>> not offer anything for me but added complexity.
>
> i'm using p9p venti on linux, and it's been a total breeze to
> configure and administer. the utility of hist and yesterday in my
> opinion far outweigh the couple megabytes of memory that venti needs
> to be running all the time (i run it on my desktop machine, not a
> dedicated file server). i'm curious to know what backup system you're
> using that is simpler than venti. my interest in plan 9, inferno,
> octopus, &c stems mainly from my using venti for backups and finding
> it to be far better that anything unix had to offer. so it you really
> do have a backup system simpler and more robust than venti, i'd love
> to try it out
>
> --
> i apologize in advance if gmail has in anyway mutilated this messege.
> stay beautiful!
>







^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-06-30 14:55 erik quanstrom
  2008-06-30 15:36 ` Charles Forsyth
  2008-06-30 17:06 ` Steven D. Vormwald
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: erik quanstrom @ 2008-06-30 14:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: bblochl, 9fans

> is not available under Plan 9. (Or is it?) As there is no simple
> introduction to Plan 9 new users will just go the easy way and get
> Windows or Linux.

lack of an introduction is not the problem.  not being unix
is the problem.

> For example the
> role of make as an equivalent for cc is not self-evident for a
> traditional normal OS-user.

come again?

- erik



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread
* [9fans] sad commentary
@ 2008-06-30  2:21 erik quanstrom
  2008-06-30  2:32 ` john
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 134+ messages in thread
From: erik quanstrom @ 2008-06-30  2:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 9fans

this slashdot article almost asks for cpu
functionality for plan 9 by name.

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/08/06/29/1417247.shtml

not a single mention of plan 9.  i hope
this is an indication that slashdot has
slipped.

screens?  1978 called and wants its
terminal server mentality back.

- erik



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 134+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2008-07-22 15:50 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 134+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2008-06-30 19:12 [9fans] sad commentary Eris Discordia
2008-06-30 20:01 ` ron minnich
2008-06-30 21:20   ` Eris Discordia
2008-06-30 23:23     ` Iruata Souza
2008-07-01  0:22     ` ron minnich
2008-07-01 10:52   ` John Waters
2008-07-01 11:19     ` hiro
2008-06-30 20:11 ` michael block
2008-06-30 20:42 ` Skip Tavakkolian
2008-06-30 20:55   ` Eric Van Hensbergen
2008-06-30 23:06     ` Bakul Shah
2008-06-30 23:21       ` Francisco J Ballesteros
2008-06-30 23:22       ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2008-07-01  9:37         ` Stefan Groß
     [not found] <970551641B57BC6070158BA7@172.16.10.224>
2008-07-01  8:38 ` Francisco J Ballesteros
2008-07-01 20:36 ` Iruata Souza
     [not found] <6AB24A226A77E17024CF16B9@172.16.10.224>
2008-07-01 20:22 ` Iruata Souza
2008-07-01 20:30 ` Iruata Souza
     [not found] <6653239E78712E5C0992CFE3@172.16.10.224>
2008-07-01 12:49 ` ron minnich
2008-07-01 20:40 ` Iruata Souza
2008-07-01 21:40   ` Charles Forsyth
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2008-07-01  8:42 Eris Discordia
2008-07-01  8:28 Eris Discordia
2008-07-01  8:25 Eris Discordia
2008-07-02  4:52 ` lucio
2008-07-02  5:21   ` Robert William Fuller
2008-07-02  6:09     ` andrey mirtchovski
2008-07-02 18:58       ` Wes Kussmaul
2008-07-02 19:14         ` erik quanstrom
2008-07-02 21:20           ` Skip Tavakkolian
2008-07-03  0:19       ` Robert William Fuller
2008-07-02  9:28     ` lucio
2008-07-02 17:55       ` David Leimbach
2008-07-02 12:04     ` erik quanstrom
2008-07-03  0:13       ` Robert William Fuller
2008-07-03  0:17       ` Robert William Fuller
2008-07-03  2:16         ` Adrian Tritschler
2008-07-03  8:43           ` Robert Raschke
2008-07-03 10:25             ` Steve Simon
2008-07-03 12:27             ` dave.l
2008-07-03 18:12               ` Michaelian Ennis
2008-07-05 17:14             ` Wes Kussmaul
2008-07-05 17:43             ` Wes Kussmaul
2008-07-03  9:39           ` Rodolfo kix García 
2008-07-04 11:26           ` matt
2008-07-04 10:58         ` matt
2008-07-01  7:47 Eris Discordia
2008-07-01 13:15 ` john
     [not found] <A5F2B9F56DBEDAA4DDA2E579@172.16.10.224>
2008-07-01  7:23 ` andrey mirtchovski
2008-07-01  8:45   ` Eris Discordia
     [not found]   ` <E65EC37F521210B28673D390@172.16.10.224>
2008-07-01  9:41     ` Federico G. Benavento
2008-07-01 10:40       ` Andrés Domínguez
2008-07-01 22:02       ` Eris Discordia
2008-07-01 22:40         ` erik quanstrom
2008-07-01 23:43         ` a
2008-07-02  5:44         ` Federico G. Benavento
2008-07-02  6:19           ` John Waters
2008-07-01  7:04 Eris Discordia
2008-07-01 14:06 ` cummij
2008-07-01 14:16   ` ron minnich
2008-07-01  6:47 Eris Discordia
2008-07-01  7:42 ` John Stalker
2008-07-01 13:24 ` Eric Van Hensbergen
2008-07-01 13:32   ` john
2008-07-01 21:35     ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-07-01 21:53       ` Dan Cross
2008-07-01 22:17         ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-07-01 21:55       ` john
2008-07-01 17:44 ` Russ Cox
     [not found] <B7A30661A94738A2B9BE1EA7@172.16.10.200>
2008-06-30 23:02 ` Uriel
2008-06-30 22:32 Eris Discordia
2008-06-30 22:13 Eris Discordia
2008-06-30 22:48 ` Rob Pike
2008-06-30 23:17   ` Francisco J Ballesteros
2008-06-30 23:28   ` Federico G. Benavento
2008-07-01  6:53     ` bblochl
2008-07-01  9:21       ` Federico G. Benavento
2008-07-01 13:50         ` David Leimbach
2008-07-01 14:10           ` hiro
2008-07-01 15:20         ` Uriel
2008-07-01 19:21           ` bblochl
2008-07-01 22:55           ` Jack Johnson
2008-07-01 12:44       ` ron minnich
2008-07-01 13:35   ` David Leimbach
2008-07-01 13:47     ` john
2008-07-01 13:59     ` John Waters
2008-07-01 14:03       ` David Leimbach
2008-06-30 22:56 ` erik quanstrom
2008-06-30 23:07 ` a
2008-06-30 23:11 ` Skip Tavakkolian
2008-07-01  8:01   ` Eris Discordia
     [not found]   ` <EBDCEA43BFC1C5EE4070BC1E@172.16.10.224>
2008-07-01 20:33     ` Iruata Souza
2008-07-02  8:38 ` DaveL
2008-06-30 21:45 Eris Discordia
2008-07-01 15:40 ` michael block
2008-06-30 14:55 erik quanstrom
2008-06-30 15:36 ` Charles Forsyth
2008-06-30 17:26   ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-06-30 17:06 ` Steven D. Vormwald
2008-06-30 17:34   ` john
2008-06-30 18:33     ` Francisco J Ballesteros
2008-06-30 18:47       ` Tom Lieber
2008-06-30 23:28     ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-06-30 18:16   ` John Stalker
2008-06-30 18:27     ` a
2008-07-02  6:48       ` sqweek
2008-07-02  7:39         ` gdiaz
2008-07-02 12:17           ` erik quanstrom
2008-07-02 12:35         ` erik quanstrom
2008-07-22 14:16           ` sqweek
2008-07-22 14:47             ` Kernel Panic
2008-07-22 14:50               ` erik quanstrom
2008-07-22 15:50               ` Charles Forsyth
2008-07-22 15:50                 ` sqweek
2008-07-22 15:46             ` C H Forsyth
2008-06-30 21:19   ` erik quanstrom
2008-06-30  2:21 erik quanstrom
2008-06-30  2:32 ` john
2008-06-30  3:10   ` Tim Wiess
2008-06-30  5:24     ` underspecified
2008-06-30  6:57       ` Francisco J Ballesteros
2008-06-30  7:50         ` John Waters
2008-06-30  8:03           ` Fco. J. Ballesteros
2008-06-30  2:38 ` Uriel
2008-06-30 12:06   ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-06-30 13:46     ` bblochl
2008-06-30 17:27       ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-06-30 13:48     ` bblochl
2008-06-30 13:52       ` john
2008-06-30 14:00         ` bblochl
2008-06-30 14:07           ` john
2008-06-30 17:23             ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-06-30 17:21       ` Pietro Gagliardi
2008-06-30 17:34 ` ron minnich

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