Re: [9fans] nice hardware for a cpu server

[a@9srv.net]

sure, there's tons of stuff you wouldn't want to rewrite just because
there's a new system to target it for (unless your from certain GNU
projects). but at the same time, i often don't have a plan9/unix box
around to "os" to to run troff or produce PDF files for me. not to
mention the fact that some - many - things don't lend themselves well
to that sort of "fire and forget" operation. while we needn't port
ghostscript, per se, it would be nice to be able to produce PS or
PDF from inferno without the extra box.

now, yes, brucee's right: if you've got a box that does what you
want already, and you have access to that box whenever you want to
do that, figure out how to export the resource rather than porting
it. we've had styx interfaces to OCR systems on remote unix boxes
and TTS and ASR systems on boards running an embedded unix. if we
could have had a equally-performant version of these written in
limbo directly, we'd have been happier, but we didn't really care
much: we were interested in building with them as parts, and once
we had the interface to the parts, their internal construction was
a matter of curiosity and taste more than anything else.

besides, the more time spent rewriting existing stuff is less time
spent writing new stuff. you can do in limbo almost all of what
you can do in other languages, but you can also do things in limbo
that are impossible (or nearly so) in other languages. i know where
i'd rather spend my time.
ア