From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <86ipx4s36p.fsf@cmarib.ramside> References: <86ipx4s36p.fsf@cmarib.ramside> Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 00:37:47 -0800 Message-ID: From: Akshat Kumar To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Re: [9fans] RESOLVED: recoving important header file rudely Topicbox-Message-UUID: a63a1526-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 Somehow a particular problem with a particular application has degenerated into a rather unfair generalization of the whole system: > Reading about Plan 9, I was quite excited to install it. =A0I was quite > excited when I first booted and ran it, too. =A0But I distinctly felt my > heart sink a little the first time it hung. =A0Since then, I've browsed > some of the OS source code and, having done that, I came to understand > why the system was so buggy. =A0The core applications appear to be writte= n > in a style of C programming reminiscent of the dawn of UNIX. =A0While the > operating system architecture is BEAUTIFULLY designed (with the > exception, perhaps of that fossil/conf gotcha!), the C code used to > implement it doesn't seem to take advantage of any of the programming > paradigms that have emerged in the intervening 30 years... It would help the conversation if you described what these new paradigms are. For instance, Plan 9 does not have any code that's built upon any sort of functional programming language. But again, that's not necessary. What practices has everyone here missed, which would turn Plan 9 code into gold? The argument seems a bit pretentious. > Getting Plan 9 code to crash is almost too easy: > > term% mkdir trashdir && cd trashdir && mkdir x > term% touch `{i=3D0; while (test $i -lt 128) { echo -n abcdefghijklmnop; = i=3D`{echo $i+1|hoc} } } > term% cp abc* abc* x > # watch the cp executable suicide > # now, make SURE there's nothing in this rio window that you want to keep= ... > term% rm abc* > # watch the rio window go bye bye! Sorry, this does not crash any Plan 9 code on my system. How much data globbing should handle is a matter of practicality. When rc dies, the rio window closes. ak