[9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Skip Tavakkolian]

i missed this part earlier on this thread:

> do 2 or 3 of these depending on interest -- can someone talk about
> Skip tavvakolian's work?

I'm glad to see there's interest . "Rangboom" is the right term to use
since it is the work of many; key among them Bruce, Russ and Geoff.

i'm going to try to make it there.

Re: [9fans] bell-labs website and plan9

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2007/4/9, Benn Newman <newmanbe@sdf.lonestar.org>:
> On 05/04/07, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> > > it seems like Bell Labs/Lucent doesn't really do anything with Plan
> > > 9 these days except host the server.
> >
> > You obviously haven't done a replica/pull lately.  ☺
> >
> It would be really nice if you made a ChangeLog or used patch(1) so
> the rest of us could easily tell what you did. ☺

I've been asking uriel to write an rc script for me to run, but he
doesn't seem to want to. The premise is to parse output of
replica/pull and provide diff -c output for all changed non-binary
files. He doesn't seem to want to do this because he says he doesn't
like how replica/pull [doesn't] work.

Basically, the premise is to take the output of replica/pull, find
non-binary files, run history on sourcesdump for those files, diff -c
the two, and plop that in some file. I'll read through it and create
comments on what the changes are. If I have a question, I'll ask
someone. And I'll manually maintain a ChangeLog of sorts.

One thing that this will need is support for a '*' target for -s (and
I guess for -c, too, just for consistency) to replica/applylog. I have
a patch for this, and I'll submit it shortly. This flag would make
applylog ignore all client-side (or server-side) changes, though I
suppose the latter is already possible.

If there's a better way for me to get diffs (or if they can be piped
directly to my Inbox), I'd be glad to maintain a ChangeLog.

That said, I've also been working on a vac-based SCM. See also
/n/sources/contrib/dho/vcs/

--dho

> --
> Benn Newman

Re: [9fans] bell-labs website and plan9

[Russ Cox]

devon:
> One thing that this will need is support for a '*' target for -s (and
> I guess for -c, too, just for consistency) to replica/applylog. I have
> a patch for this, and I'll submit it shortly. This flag would make
> applylog ignore all client-side (or server-side) changes, though I
> suppose the latter is already possible.

Since the arguments to -c and -s are just string prefixes, you 
can use -c '' or -s '' already.  I admit it is non-standard.

However, you'd be better off not using replica/pull as
the input to a differ, but instead using replica's change file
/n/sources/plan9/dist/replica/plan9.log.  Replica(8) describes
the format:

   A replica is further described on the server by a textual
   log listing creation and deletion of files and changes to
   file contents and metadata.  Each line is of the form:

      time gen verb path serverpath mode uid gid mtime length

   The time and gen fields are both decimal numbers, providing
   an ordering for log entries so that incremental tools need
   not process the whole log each time they are run.  The verb,
   a single character, describes the event: addition of a file
   (a), deletion of a file (d), a change to a file's contents
   (c), or a change to a file's metadata (m).  Path is the file
   path on the client; serverpath the path on the server (these
   are different when the optional fifth field in a proto file
   line is given; see proto(2)). Mode, uid, gid, and mtime are
   the files metadata as in the Dir structure (see stat(5)).
   For deletion events, the metadata is that of the deleted
   file.  For other events, the metadata is that after the
   event.

It would be easiest to pick the two most recent dumps in
/n/sourcesdump, diff the plan9.log files to pick out the
new lines, and then run diffs between the two different
dump roots.  This is what we used to do when we (I) annotated
all the changes to produce /n/sources/extra/changes.
But it was far too much work to do the annotations and
not enough people cared, so we stopped that particular
experiment.

erik:
> i have also noticed that replica/applylog has a problem.  when i started
> experimenting with copying history from our old fileserver to the new
> one, i started using replica/updatedb and replica/applylog.  updatedb
> worked very well, but applylog hung for me pretty consistantly.

Did you ever use acid to get a stack trace from the `hung' applylogs?
The only threading in applylog is an implementation of something
like fcp to copy files using multiple outstanding 9P read requests.
Since no one else seems to have had problems, I would guess that
there were just some requests that made your file server thrash.
But stack traces would make the answer very clear.

ron:
> My take is that bringing in mercurial, and then using mercurial with
> mounted file systems, instead of ssh, would be quite neat. And, we are
> close to having it. We've got python, almost. We've just about got
> python modules -- actually, I've had them for months. Lots of bits
> work that did not used to. We really are pretty close.

Echoing Ron, I think having Mercurial would be great and doable.
If someone makes a Mercurial client work, I will be happy to make
a Mercurial repository that mirrors sources automatically.

Also echoing Ron, a venti-based SCM sounds similar to git,
which is an SCM built on top of a hash-addressed object store
(that happens not to be named venti).  It would be nice to know
you're not reinventing git, especially since in my experience
the fact that git is hash-addressed makes many things a lot
harder and slower (although I am sure it has advantages).

devon:
> In fact, I seem to recall the last time Uriel was yelling about this
> on the list, Russ offered to do exactly this. Is this offer still
> available? It'd save me some time and effort trying to figure out how
> to revert a replica/pull.

I put a copy of the script we used to use in
/n/sources/contrib/rsc/makemail.  Use at your own risk.
It probably deserves to be rewritten in a better language.

devon again:
> So maybe to go further down that path (and I would
> _love_ to get input from Bell Labs people because they're really the
> ones that have the power to yay or nay any of this), is replica/*
> still an ideal manner for getting updates? Are there potentially
> better ways to do this?

There are things that replica doesn't do very well.  I wish you
could tell it to back up, or to back out local changes, and so on,
but the core functionality works well, and I would be wary of
falling into the CADT Model trap (ask Google).

devon again:
> The scenario being, I want to test my hypothetical replica/applylog
> action parser / diff generator. I run pull, which grabs stuff, but
> I've made changes to xyz.c and that file doesn't get modified because
> of local changes. So I want to roll back my log so I can run pull
> again with -s /sys/src/cmd/xyz.c

Your thinking is stuck in the maze of twisty little passages
that is modern Unix and its version control systems.
Replica is a file distribution mechanism, not a version 
control system.

On Plan 9, one would do this with the dump file system.
9fs sourcesdump and look around -- you've got all the info
there you could possibly want to produce diffs.  You don't
even need to copy anything to your local machine.

Russ

Re: [9fans] bell-labs website and plan9

[Uriel]

> This is what we used to do when we (I) annotated
> all the changes to produce /n/sources/extra/changes.
> But it was far too much work to do the annotations and
> not enough people cared, so we stopped that particular
> experiment.

There are 75 people subscribed to the plan9changes[1] mailing list, is
that not enough people that care?

uriel

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/plan9changes

Re: [9fans] bell-labs website and plan9

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2007/4/9, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com>:
> > This is what we used to do when we (I) annotated
> > all the changes to produce /n/sources/extra/changes.
> > But it was far too much work to do the annotations and
> > not enough people cared, so we stopped that particular
> > experiment.
>
> There are 75 people subscribed to the plan9changes[1] mailing list, is
> that not enough people that care?

Can we not go down this road? I'm offering to take up maintaining
/n/sources/extra/changes for the People Who Do. Arguing about the past
isn't going to help us progress into the future.

> uriel
>
> [1] http://groups.google.com/group/plan9changes

--dho

Re: [9fans] bell-labs website and plan9

[Uriel]

On 4/9/07, Devon H. O'Dell <devon.odell@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2007/4/9, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com>:
> > There are 75 people subscribed to the plan9changes[1] mailing list, is
> > that not enough people that care?
>
> Can we not go down this road? I'm offering to take up maintaining
> /n/sources/extra/changes for the People Who Do. Arguing about the past
> isn't going to help us progress into the future.

I am not arguing about the past, but I don't like people rewriting
history, if russ didn't want to keep updating the changelog, that is
fine, it was nice that he did it for a while, and it is his choice how
he spends his time; but claiming that nobody cared is ridiculous.

And I am pointing how many people care right now. If you or anyone is
going to maintain /n/sources/extra/changes, that will be really
fantastic and will make many people happy.

Of course, I don't think this is the right way to do things, the
easiest and most useful way to do it is for the person who makes the
change to writes down what the change is supposed to do, but I guess
this is a crazy suggestion in the Plan 9 universe.

An hg port would be very useful, and I would not mind if Plan 9 used
to maintain its codebase and distribute changes (I don't like replica,
you can check 9fans archives for some of the reasons, but in short: it
is slow, unreliable, and awkward to use.)

Once we find out if the code ron put in 9grid.net (now mirrored in
sources) is the latest, I might try to help dho get python and hg
running on Plan 9. Dho and me are still waiting to hear back from ron
about this after many unanswered private emails.

It also would be nice if ron and the other LANL folks could reveal
(and release) the state of their gcc port.

Best wishes

uriel

Re: [9fans] bell-labs website and plan9

[ron minnich]

On 4/9/07, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:

> It also would be nice if ron and the other LANL folks could reveal
> (and release) the state of their gcc port.
>

Sorry about that. What's at 9grid.net is the latest from me.

Note that I am no longer at LANL, but am at Sandia Labs in livermore, ca.

Gee, is there a CA-based plan 9 user's group?

ron

Re: [9fans] bell-labs website and plan9

[Christopher Nielsen]

if there isn't, we should start one. i am in san francisco.
though, i am about to depart for fire season, but i'll be back some
time in november.

On 4/9/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Gee, is there a CA-based plan 9 user's group?
>
> ron
>


-- 
Christopher Nielsen
"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

[9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Lawrence E. Bakst]

All,

I am interested as well. I'm in the Silicon Valley area.

leb


At 4:03 PM -0700 4/9/07, Christopher Nielsen wrote:
>if there isn't, we should start one. i am in san francisco.
>though, i am about to depart for fire season, but i'll be back some
>time in november.
>
>On 4/9/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Gee, is there a CA-based plan 9 user's group?
>>
>>ron
>>
>
>
>--
>Christopher Nielsen
>"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary
>safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[ron minnich]

I can see if sandia can make a meeting room available, but at the same
time, we're out in the sticks as far as Si valley is concerned. What's
a good way to do this?

thanks

ron

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Roman Shaposhnick]

Me too! Me too! ;-)

Thanks,
Roman.

On Mon, 2007-04-09 at 17:12 -0700, ron minnich wrote:
> I can see if sandia can make a meeting room available, but at the same
> time, we're out in the sticks as far as Si valley is concerned. What's
> a good way to do this?
> 
> thanks
> 
> ron

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Micah Stetson]

I'm interested as well, though I'm a few hours north and wouldn't be
able to attend very often.

Micah

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[ron minnich]

I'm going to look for a place we can meet. I will let you know.
Warning, my first choice will be livermore, since I live here :-)

ron

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Lawrence E. Bakst]

Does anyone who wants to attend live or work in the Pleasanton or Hayward areas and might be able to contribute a location there? They are both nice halfway points for almost everyone in the Bay area.

I *might* be able to find something in Pleasanton. Give me a few days.

Best,

leb


At 4:32 PM -0700 4/10/07, ron minnich wrote:
>I'm going to look for a place we can meet. I will let you know.
>Warning, my first choice will be livermore, since I live here :-)
>
>ron

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

USENIX BoF in June in Santa Clara?

            -eric


On 4/11/07, Lawrence E. Bakst <ml@iridescent.org> wrote:
> Does anyone who wants to attend live or work in the Pleasanton or Hayward areas and might be able to contribute a location there? They are both nice halfway points for almost everyone in the Bay area.
>
> I *might* be able to find something in Pleasanton. Give me a few days.
>
> Best,
>
> leb
>
>
> At 4:32 PM -0700 4/10/07, ron minnich wrote:
> >I'm going to look for a place we can meet. I will let you know.
> >Warning, my first choice will be livermore, since I live here :-)
> >
> >ron
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[ron minnich]

On 4/11/07, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> USENIX BoF in June in Santa Clara?

see you there.

ron

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Joel Franusic]

I live 3 hours from the Bay Area, but would definitely want to attend
a meeting for 9fans.

If no meeting space can be found for a Plan 9 users group, might I
suggest attending SuperHappyDevHouse? It's an almost-monthly party for
"hackers and thinkers". An influx of Plan 9 hackers would be very
welcome :-)

To learn more about SuperHappyDevHouse, visit http://shdh.org.
To see what the party looks like, see http://flickr.com/photos/tags/shdh/

On 4/11/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/07, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> > USENIX BoF in June in Santa Clara?
>
> see you there.
>
> ron
>

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[ron minnich]

On 4/11/07, Joel Franusic <joel@sargo.com> wrote:

> If no meeting space can be found for a Plan 9 users group, might I
> suggest attending SuperHappyDevHouse? It's an almost-monthly party for
> "hackers and thinkers". An influx of Plan 9 hackers would be very
> welcome :-)

looks like fun, I am on travel the april 28 one but june 9 is a possibility.


I have found I can get a free room at livermore library for a small
number -- single digits -- of people.

If we can't do better that might be a start. If we had a plan 9 .org I
can rent a larger room as needed.

ron

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[David Hendricks]

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Hello everyone,
   FWIW, I can set up a meeting on the Google campus in Mountain View, if
that's more convenient. Depending on when the meeting is, a 20+ person room
with video conferencing and catering should be easy.

On 4/12/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/11/07, Joel Franusic <joel@sargo.com> wrote:
>
> > If no meeting space can be found for a Plan 9 users group, might I
> > suggest attending SuperHappyDevHouse? It's an almost-monthly party for
> > "hackers and thinkers". An influx of Plan 9 hackers would be very
> > welcome :-)
>
> looks like fun, I am on travel the april 28 one but june 9 is a
> possibility.
>
>
> I have found I can get a free room at livermore library for a small
> number -- single digits -- of people.
>
> If we can't do better that might be a start. If we had a plan 9 .org I
> can rent a larger room as needed.
>
> ron
>

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Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[ron minnich]

I can get there if it's after next week ...

ron

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Roman Shaposhnik]

On Fri, 2007-04-13 at 15:34 -0700, David Hendricks wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>    FWIW, I can set up a meeting on the Google campus in Mountain View,
> if that's more convenient. Depending on when the meeting is, a 20+
> person room with video conferencing and catering should be easy. 

  Personally -- I'd love that!

Thanks,
Roman.

P.S. Full disclosure: Google campus is a 10 minutes drive from my
place ;-)

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Devon H. O'Dell]

Grumble. Where did all you people come from? When I posted about 2
years ago to this list when I was living there, nobody wanted to get
together :(

--dho

2007/4/14, Roman Shaposhnik <rvs@sun.com>:
> On Fri, 2007-04-13 at 15:34 -0700, David Hendricks wrote:
> > Hello everyone,
> >    FWIW, I can set up a meeting on the Google campus in Mountain View,
> > if that's more convenient. Depending on when the meeting is, a 20+
> > person room with video conferencing and catering should be easy.
>
>   Personally -- I'd love that!
>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
> P.S. Full disclosure: Google campus is a 10 minutes drive from my
> place ;-)
>
>

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Joel C. Salomon]

On 4/14/07, Devon H. O'Dell <devon.odell@gmail.com> wrote:
> Grumble. Where did all you people come from? When I posted about 2
> years ago to this list when I was living there, nobody wanted to get
> together :(

You offering to host a 9fans shindig in New York, maybe?  ☺

--Joel

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2007/4/14, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com>:
> On 4/14/07, Devon H. O'Dell <devon.odell@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Grumble. Where did all you people come from? When I posted about 2
> > years ago to this list when I was living there, nobody wanted to get
> > together :(
>
> You offering to host a 9fans shindig in New York, maybe?  ☺
>
> --Joel

Sure, I'm about 2 hours north of the city, but I don't mind travelling
there / picking people up around my place. There's good pizza / beer /
wine everywhere...

--dho

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Christopher Nielsen]

like ron, i can make it if it's after next week.

On 4/13/07, David Hendricks <david.hendricks@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>    FWIW, I can set up a meeting on the Google campus in Mountain View, if
> that's more convenient. Depending on when the meeting is, a 20+ person room
> with video conferencing and catering should be easy.
>
>
> On 4/12/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/11/07, Joel Franusic <joel@sargo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > If no meeting space can be found for a Plan 9 users group, might I
> > > suggest attending SuperHappyDevHouse? It's an almost-monthly party for
> > > "hackers and thinkers". An influx of Plan 9 hackers would be very
> > > welcome :-)
> >
> > looks like fun, I am on travel the april 28 one but june 9 is a
> possibility.
> >
> >
> > I have found I can get a free room at livermore library for a small
> > number -- single digits -- of people.
> >
> > If we can't do better that might be a start. If we had a plan 9 .org I
> > can rent a larger room as needed.
> >
> > ron
> >
>
>


-- 
Christopher Nielsen
"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan]

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I am interested too. I am also in the Silicon Valley area.

Thanks
dharani


On 4/9/07, Lawrence E. Bakst <ml@iridescent.org> wrote:
>
> All,
>
> I am interested as well. I'm in the Silicon Valley area.
>
> leb
>
>
> At 4:03 PM -0700 4/9/07, Christopher Nielsen wrote:
> >if there isn't, we should start one. i am in san francisco.
> >though, i am about to depart for fire season, but i'll be back some
> >time in november.
> >
> >On 4/9/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>Gee, is there a CA-based plan 9 user's group?
> >>
> >>ron
> >>
> >
> >
> >--
> >Christopher Nielsen
> >"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary
> >safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] CA Bay Area Plan9 users group

[Anthony Sorace]

i'm not normally out there, but visit SF with relative frequency (one
coming up the first week in may). i'm interested in getting together
with other 9fans.