Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[forsyth]

>>Let's get off the hobbyhorse of criticising all the alternative
>>platforms and actually co-operate with them or show that the Plan
>>9 way is as superior as we make it out to be.

you're possibly overlooking the possibility that some of us have
written things such as portable compilers (and other things)
ourselves for a good few other systems, and take that into account
when making comparisons -- it's not
just that this or that isn't Plan 9.

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Lucio De Re]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 07:25:32PM +0000, forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> >>Let's get off the hobbyhorse of criticising all the alternative
> >>platforms and actually co-operate with them or show that the Plan
> >>9 way is as superior as we make it out to be.
>
> you're possibly overlooking the possibility that some of us have
> written things such as portable compilers (and other things)
> ourselves for a good few other systems, and take that into account
> when making comparisons -- it's not
> just that this or that isn't Plan 9.

My point isn't in the achievements, one would have to be very blind
or inexperienced to fault the contributions made by the Plan 9 team
(in its broadest sense).

On the other hand, continuous criticism (it's an attitude that's
been bothering me for years now) of everything beyond the boundaries
of Plan 9/Inferno, no matter how justified, isn't healthy.

Whether it's GCC, USB, X or Emacs, nobody needs to be reminded that
they suck in some fashion or other.  What we all need are replacement
tools that provide equivalent value with all the advantages of the
Plan 9 platform.  And even more importantly, one needs the platform
to support the user base.  Take my bread-and-butter client:  they
run their computer system under SCO Unix (too shy of Solaris, but
they need multiprocessing power for the COBOL application they are
continually developing) and most of the users are effectively data
capture clerks with terminal emulators on their desks.

The cheapest terminal today is a Win'9x workstation, specially if
e-mail, a web browser, a word processor and a spreadsheet are
complementary, productivity enhancing tools.  They needn't be, but
if the perception is they are, one may as well learn to live with
it.  Then there's compatibility with Word and Excel that is more
critical than the compatibility of the terminal emulator - there's
some control in making the COBOL program not push the terminal
emulator too far, the same cannot be said of e-mail messages and the
spread of office documents.

I could go further, but I'm sure the scenario is familiar enough.
We'd all love to put Plan 9 terminals on these desks, reduce the
cost of onwership, support, need to upgrade etc. by one or two
orders of magnitudes.  But this isn't possible, clearly.  Next
best, coordinate the Win'9x workstation using SAMBA to provide file
services (mostly for backup and information exchange) rather than
the more expensive, more difficult to administer NT.  Can we use
Plan 9 there?  No, again.  More's the pity.

We can learn lessons from Plan 9, centralise file services and
authentication, set up roaming profiles, minimise hardware differences,
lots of hints from the Plan 9 philosophy, but the real thing runs
exclusively on my desk and then mostly in the guise of VNCviewer
(I also use Charon as the browser, wherever I can).

So the reality is that Plan 9 _is_ the superior platform, but there
isn't the appeal in it that draws the software developers to produce
applications that users actually want.  Why is this so?  Because
the bridges to the more popular development platforms are not being
built.  Much as I was horrified that dhog was prepared to port GCC
3.0 to Plan 9 (I was, honestly), it would open a door; Perl would
open another, Python a third, Apache a fourth, etc.  One can improve
on each of these, replace them with more suitable implementations,
later.

So let's not spend our efforts knocking what's familiar, let's
encourage it and then improve it.  There's plenty of effort in
that.

OK, I'd better shut up now, I know this is a boring subject, sorry
to have let off steam at everyone's expense.

++L

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Caffienator]

In article <20011107192058.2C84D199E7@mail.cse.psu.edu>, "forsyth"
<forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>>>Let's get off the hobbyhorse of criticising all the alternative
>>>platforms and actually co-operate with them or show that the Plan 9 way
>>>is as superior as we make it out to be.
>
> you're possibly overlooking the possibility that some of us have written
> things such as portable compilers (and other things) ourselves for a
> good few other systems, and take that into account when making
> comparisons -- it's not
> just that this or that isn't Plan 9.


I certainly didnt intend to start a flamewar with my post.

Right now, I develop for Linux. Primarily because it's the simplest to
use in regards to the development tools that are available. Sure, I could
figure out how to jerry rig alot of those tools into Plan9, but I just
dont have the time(for now) to do that sort of thing.
I've been running Plan9 across a few local workstations, just to play
around with it. It has alot of potential, and I would really like to
develop for it, but the tools available on Plan9 are somewhat limited.

With that being said, I do plan on developing some of my own tools and
making them available to the Plan9 community, but the big ones, like an
Ada compiler, just might be a little too much for me to bite off at this
point.

Now, Plan9 does have it's own C compiler. I dont suppose it would be
impossible to integrate GNAT on top of that? Is there anything in GNAT
that exclusively requires GCC? Can those issues be dealt with via a
little select modification of the GNAT sources?

Thoughts?

Caffienator
chris@dont.spam.me

[9fans] Plan 9/Inferno on Pogo, anyone?

[John Murdie]

http://www.pogo-tech.com/

Today's UK `IT Week' says that this 75MHz ARM7-based colour display PDA
'phone (it looks more PDA than 'phone) will be on retail sale in the UK
in January priced at £299 plus £8-£10 a month for an Internet
connection. (No mention of how much the 'phone contract will cost.)

Hmm, for all I know, it may be Inferno-based already, but I've seen no
mention of that.

-- 

John A. Murdie
Experimental Officer (Software)
Department of Computer Science
University of York
England

Re: [9fans] Plan 9/Inferno on Pogo, anyone?

[Borja Marcos]

On Monday 12 November 2001 12:32, you wrote:
> Thin client. What operating system runs on their servers is probably more
> interesting. Strange, I can't imagine thin client supporting a very large
> consumer base; the numbers don't work out.

	Not with the typical phone network. However, recently deployed networks are 
based on small nodes serving a bunch of buildings, all linked with a SDH 
network. For example, Euskaltel, a new telehpone operator here, is installing 
one of such nodes under my flat.

	Such nodes would serve a reduced number of users (compared to the typical 
phone switch) and I think it would be possible to deploy thin clients in such 
newtorks, using cable modems or xDSL.

	In fact, when Inferno was released I thought I would see a phone company 
offering thin clients for simple computing tasks, Internet access, video on 
demand (or near video on demand), etc. I think this was the idea of the 
original Inferno developers.

	At least in Spain, where telephone network operation is no longer a monopoly 
(well, in fact it is still a de-facto monopoly) new networks are being 
deployed in that way. Forget the huge central offices with huge phone 
switches serving 100,000 lines and local loops in the range of 1 - 2 Km.



	Borja.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9/Inferno on Pogo, anyone?

[nigel]

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Thin client. What operating system runs on their servers is probably more
interesting. Strange, I can't imagine thin client supporting a very large
consumer base; the numbers don't work out.

Perhaps they're more interested in selling the content than the device.


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From: John Murdie <john@cs.york.ac.uk>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Cc: John Murdie <john@cs.york.ac.uk>
Subject: [9fans] Plan 9/Inferno on Pogo, anyone?
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 11:22:35 +0000 (GMT)
Message-ID: <E163FAp-0004lN-00@minster.cs.york.ac.uk>

http://www.pogo-tech.com/

Today's UK `IT Week' says that this 75MHz ARM7-based colour display PDA
'phone (it looks more PDA than 'phone) will be on retail sale in the UK
in January priced at £299 plus £8-£10 a month for an Internet
connection. (No mention of how much the 'phone contract will cost.)

Hmm, for all I know, it may be Inferno-based already, but I've seen no
mention of that.

-- 

John A. Murdie
Experimental Officer (Software)
Department of Computer Science
University of York
England