Re: [9fans] sad commentary

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

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.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[ron minnich]

well, Eris, it is quite possible that you're right. It is also
possible that you never quite got it.

Or both are possible.

ron

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

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.

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 1:01 PM -0700 ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>
wrote:

> well, Eris, it is quite possible that you're right. It is also
> possible that you never quite got it.
>
> Or both are possible.
>
> ron
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Iruata Souza]

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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[ron minnich]

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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[John Waters]

Not to mention quoting ESR is not going to win you any friends
anywhere, except for ESR's house...
jcw

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 11:01 PM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> well, Eris, it is quite possible that you're right. It is also
> possible that you never quite got it.
>
> Or both are possible.
>
> ron
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[hiro]

Haha, sarcasm at it's finest.
Eris, you are my hero.

--
hiro

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[michael block]

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!

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> 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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Bakul Shah]

> 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.

Pretty GUI doesn't hurt but it is the ease of use that makes
time machine popular. Kudos to Apple for making something as
unsexy as backups a desirable feature!

Pretty GUI may attract people initially but in the end it is
really about the ease of use.  Most people just want to use a
computer, not learn all about it (just as they want to drive
a car and not look under the hood). A "Plan9 for Dummies"
book will be great but that won't help all those people who
just want to take Plan9 for a spin.  With 9vx at least one
major hurdle has been removed.

BTW, I primarily use venti for backups in my multi-os
environment.  I would love a fancy GUI on it. Much easier to
look for a lost picture by what it looks like than try to
remember its camera generated name like P314159.JPG.

There is no reason in principle why venti can't be made as
easy to use as the time-machine.  If anything, plan9 is
perhaps a superior platform for building an easy to use
system as it has a regular structure.  It is just that most
people who use plan9 are programmers and seem happy with the
status quo.

> 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.

Didn't someone say back in 2000 that system software research
is irrelevant?!

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

>  Pretty GUI may attract people initially but in the end it is
>  really about the ease of use.  Most people just want to use a
>  computer, not learn all about it (just as they want to drive
>  a car and not look under the hood). A "Plan9 for Dummies"
>  book will be great but that won't help all those people who
>  just want to take Plan9 for a spin.  With 9vx at least one
>  major hurdle has been removed.

There's still hope. With Octopus you really need to learn the
sam command language (plus some weird menus) to use your
Plan9 system from your linux/osx/windows box. Thus, if
9vx seems just too easy, you can still make things complex (for the user)
again ;)

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

>Most people just want to use a
> computer, not learn all about it (just as they want to drive
> a car and not look under the hood).

And Windows is the Chevrolet|Ford|Toyota|\* for the common man.

We are not the common man. Buy a bus pass and push off.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Stefan Groß]

>> Most people just want to use a
>> computer, not learn all about it (just as they want to drive
>> a car and not look under the hood).

Using things that you don't understand is suspicious, but I agree that
most people do it, they sit in their Windows and don't know what they're
doing. And there are a lot of problems rising from that. That's ok for
me, so I have a lot of work to do, but in fact it's a direct consequence
from the "user-orientated" design of Windows Explorer and Mac-OS Aqua
and KDE, and, to a lesser extend, GNOME: these environments use a lot of
abstraction to present the Computer like something that understands you,
so you feel like home - at the same time, and as an inevitable spin-off,
this hides the computers real functioning. And that may be good to sell
these things, it may even be good to make a lot of money with cheap and
uneducated workforce that sits in front of these things, but it's not a
good approach to make a computer operative, that means a good OS. The
popular approach is not about making the Computer operative for the
people (and they know it, just read some science-fiction from the
70ties, or watch some movies about ai going evil - "HAL" from 2001 is
the interface Windows still dreams of), it's exactly the other way
round: it's an approach to make the people serve the computer. And
that's what they do all day long in the offices around the world. And
that doesn't come from what the people want, it's because they need to
pay the rent and have nothing to sell but their lifetime. Plan9 can't do
anything about that, but it is the better OS.

philosophic regards, Stefan

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

You have not read even a single word before replying.
I said I do use Plan 9 for all the things that have to be done
for my daily work.

Enough of this rant, time to write some code.

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 10:25 AM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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.
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Iruata Souza]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
like you do with your system, right?

> 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).
>
sorry if I can't write a flash player in two minutes. it won't happen again.

iru

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Iruata Souza]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 4:47 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

I'm glad you are explicitly basing your claims.
again, I'm glad to see you consider your audience on this list to be
outside *your* common denominator.
I'm even more and more glad to see I got basic tastes in common with a
prisoner in the other side of the planet walking in the deathrow.

thanks for the enlightenment.
iru

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Iruata Souza]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 4:47 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
I see you have been doing a lot of research on ergonomics.

> 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.
>
of course I agree your personal opinions could be taken as
representatives of human kind's opinions but, just in case, would you
mind showing the results of your great research on the subject?

thanks,
iru

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[ron minnich]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 1:42 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> You've misread me. I'm far from understanding which facilities Plan 9
> provides for "ron minnich," the CS/CE person.
>> 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


In other words, you didn't even bother to learn that trivial bit. You
remind me of guys in the 70s who just couldn't figure out "this Unacks
stuff". They just didn't get pipes, and they knew that they were
useless to the average user, who really needed files with Hollerith
card images in them. Unix did not look like what they were used to, so
they just "knew" it had no value.

I knew a guy once who we delivered a Sun to. "What's this windowing
bullshit?" he asked me. He put the mouse in a drawer, this in spite of
the fact that Sun text mode at the time ran at 1200 baud. Nope, too
hard to learn.

Learn and adapt, or die.  No other choices .

ron

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Iruata Souza]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
does distributed gets translated to something else in your web browser?

iru

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Charles Forsyth]

commentary? sad.
stop! please?

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

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
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

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
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

> 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.
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[lucio]

> 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?

You're putting the cart before the horse.  Of course there is
"utility" computing out there and of course there is Microsoft to fill
that niche.  And Linux to follow in its footsteps.  But there is a
frightening prospect if you assume that utility computing is all that
computing is about, namely that only massive programming effort is
required to produce any sort of computing product.

Let me try this as a comparison.  Less than a hundred years ago,
Bugatti manufactured one motorvehicle a year, from scratch.  I'm not
sure how many persons were involved, the impression I have from
hearsay is that it was a single individual.  Today, you need the might
of the Chinese or Indian manufacturers to enter the motorvehicle
manufacturing business.  Or huge investment effort for the new
eco-friendly vehicles.

Utility computing is perfectly fine as long as it is balanced by
original development, but it is poisonous if it preclueds any original
participation.  Open Source is one form of rebellion, but it lacks the
robust foundations of sound program development.  Plan 9 is a much
smaller, better designed approach.  I'm sure we won't see Plan 9
deployed widely any time soon, it lacks the "utility" nature of the
contenders and I'm sorry to see that happening, but that is the nature
of the beast.  Had Plan 9 caught the imagination of the "masses", it
would have grown the same tumors as Linux, and that would have
defeated its nature.

Think Pascal: it is hardly the language of choice today, but the
principles it enshrines have totally altered the programming language
landscape.  C is the utility version, and C++ and Java its obvious
offsprings.  Alef has been abandoned and Limbo remains a very
specialised language, but they will also leave their mark.

So, I think this dicussion is based on a premise whose value is purely
emotional: we'd all be more comfortable if Plan 9 was widely accepted,
but there is no intellectual reason for it to be so.  Rob Pike says
the same thing in a nutshell, but in reality it is the philosophy
behind Plan 9 that needs spreading: careful design, generalised
objects, simplicity rather than bulk, etc.  Not Rio or Acme, Fossil or
Venti, but the environment in which they can thrive.  The environment
in which Mozilla is difficult to create so that simpler solutions can
be sought.

++L

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Robert William Fuller]

lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:

<snip>

> Utility computing is perfectly fine as long as it is balanced by
> original development, but it is poisonous if it preclueds any original
> participation.  Open Source is one form of rebellion, but it lacks the
> robust foundations of sound program development.  Plan 9 is a much
> smaller, better designed approach.  I'm sure we won't see Plan 9

O yeahhh umm yeah like r u 3l3t3?  Err uh yeah or is it 1337?

> contenders and I'm sorry to see that happening, but that is the nature
> of the beast.  Had Plan 9 caught the imagination of the "masses", it
> would have grown the same tumors as Linux, and that would have
> defeated its nature.
>
> Think Pascal: it is hardly the language of choice today, but the
> principles it enshrines have totally altered the programming language
> landscape.  C is the utility version, and C++ and Java its obvious

Surrrrre uhhh yeah whatever you say....  Or was it Algol?

> offsprings.  Alef has been abandoned and Limbo remains a very
> specialised language, but they will also leave their mark.

So does a dog pissing on a fire hydrant.

> So, I think this dicussion is based on a premise whose value is purely
> emotional: we'd all be more comfortable if Plan 9 was widely accepted,
> but there is no intellectual reason for it to be so.  Rob Pike says
> the same thing in a nutshell, but in reality it is the philosophy
> behind Plan 9 that needs spreading: careful design, generalised
> objects, simplicity rather than bulk, etc.  Not Rio or Acme, Fossil or
> Venti, but the environment in which they can thrive.  The environment
> in which Mozilla is difficult to create so that simpler solutions can
> be sought.

Mozilla didn't create the web.  The web created Mozilla.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[andrey mirtchovski]

> Mozilla didn't create the web.  The web created Mozilla.

just change Mozilla to Mosaic and see how P→Q suddenly becomes Q→P

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Wes Kussmaul]

andrey mirtchovski wrote:
>> Mozilla didn't create the web.  The web created Mozilla.
>>     
>
> just change Mozilla to Mosaic and see how P→Q suddenly becomes Q→P
>   

Why not redirect all this energy to answering the question, "What comes 
after the Web?"

Wes Kussmaul

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

> Why not redirect all this energy to answering the question, "What comes
> after the Web?"
>
> Wes Kussmaul

intravenous television.

- erik

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Skip Tavakkolian]

>> Why not redirect all this energy to answering the question, "What comes
>> after the Web?"
>>
>> Wes Kussmaul
>
> intravenous television.
>
> - erik

maybe that's why it is called you*tube* :)

corporate users probably use computers in the performance of their
jobs, but the fact is that the majority of the pc's -- and indeed all
game machines, music devices, etc. -- are used for entertainment.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Robert William Fuller]

andrey mirtchovski wrote:
>> Mozilla didn't create the web.  The web created Mozilla.
>
> just change Mozilla to Mosaic and see how P→Q suddenly becomes Q→P

Good point....

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[lucio]

> Mozilla didn't create the web.  The web created Mozilla.

And the Internet created the web?  And the PC gave rise to Lotus
1-2-3?

Not necessarily.  Nothing gave the Internet (here in South Africa) as
much a boost as Win'95.  The Web wouldn't have been the same success
without Netscape.  So there you are, which is the cart and which the
horse?

++L

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1707 bytes --]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 2:28 AM, <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:

> > Mozilla didn't create the web.  The web created Mozilla.
>
> And the Internet created the web?  And the PC gave rise to Lotus
> 1-2-3?
>
> Not necessarily.  Nothing gave the Internet (here in South Africa) as
> much a boost as Win'95.  The Web wouldn't have been the same success
> without Netscape.  So there you are, which is the cart and which the
> horse?


I think they're co-dependent factors.  People wanted to get on the web, so
they got a browser.  People didn't want to use a browser for the sake of
using a browser :-).

If win95 made it easy to get a browser, people got it, so they could get on
the web.

Did browsers make the web more useful?  Yep, most definitely for most folks,
which is where the pressure to use a browser on the internet came from to
begin with.

Linux's killer application was apache.  Maybe Win95's was Mozilla/Internet
Explorer ?

Plan 9 has... acme, rio and other cool tools as well as just being Plan 9
itself?  It's compelling to a subset of programmers probably... not so much
for grandma though :-)

To me, this means Plan 9 will always be somewhat of a niche system, until it
gets a "killer application" that *everyone* must have and no other platform
is good at providing.

Key words are no other and everyone :-)

But who's to say the situation we have now is bad?  Use it if you like, it,
and try to contribute, otherwise don't use it and use something else?  That
or try to change the situation.

None of this talking is really getting anywhere, as it seems to be a
constant rehash of discussions had over and over.

Dave



>
> ++L
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

why are you flaming somebody who's offering reasonable
opinions?

>> Think Pascal: it is hardly the language of choice today, but the
>> principles it enshrines have totally altered the programming language
>> landscape.  C is the utility version, and C++ and Java its obvious
>
> Surrrrre uhhh yeah whatever you say....  Or was it Algol?

this stands out as particularly worth of rebuttal.
the labs were against types.  but in the end
even the labs adopted them.

>> offsprings.  Alef has been abandoned and Limbo remains a very
>> specialised language, but they will also leave their mark.
>
> So does a dog pissing on a fire hydrant.

perhaps you've forgotten that the thread library is
a direct result of alef.

>> [...], but in reality it is the philosophy
>> behind Plan 9 that needs spreading: careful design, generalised
>> objects, simplicity rather than bulk, etc.  Not Rio or Acme, Fossil or
>> Venti, but the environment in which they can thrive.  The environment
>> in which Mozilla is difficult to create so that simpler solutions can
>> be sought.
>
> Mozilla didn't create the web.  The web created Mozilla.

either way, we're back to my point.  linux &. al.
are going a different way, which i don't feel
is very fruitful.  they are working from a different
set of ideas.

it's not that i (or unfairly we — i can't and wasn't
speaking for the "plan 9 community") have an
egotisitical desire to see plan 9's ideas take over the
world.  it's that i see problems that seem pretty
straightforward to solve made difficult.  with
repetition, i feel this process erodes computing in
general as there is no avoiding other platforms.

these are tetonic forces.  there's nothing directly
to be done about them.  so my point is like
a bad poem.  there's no "and then" part.

- erik

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Robert William Fuller]

erik quanstrom wrote:
> why are you flaming somebody who's offering reasonable
> opinions?

Probably because it was late and I was err celebrating something :-)
That temporary lessening of inhibition in combination with the language
in the e-mail to which I responded being particularly arrogant resulted
in an e-mail I would not have otherwise sent.  If only I were UNABLE to
type while intoxicated....  Unfortunately, I found the keys.

<snip>

>>> offsprings.  Alef has been abandoned and Limbo remains a very
>>> specialised language, but they will also leave their mark.
>> So does a dog pissing on a fire hydrant.
>
> perhaps you've forgotten that the thread library is
> a direct result of alef.

Nah, it was just a general reaction to the idea that leaving a mark is
necessarily a positive thing.

<snip>

No arguments in general with your reply :-)

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Robert William Fuller]

erik quanstrom wrote:

<snip>

> these are tetonic forces.  there's nothing directly

As a geologist, I can't let this one slip (pun intended.)  It's tectonic.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Adrian Tritschler]

Robert William Fuller wrote:
> erik quanstrom wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> these are tetonic forces.  there's nothing directly
>
> As a geologist, I can't let this one slip (pun intended.)  It's tectonic.

Being of german ancestry, I can't let it slip either..  Maybe Eric meant
Teutonic?  Either would fit, and neither requries UTF-8 :-)

Off topic? We don't need no topic, we're the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Knights who say ni!

	Adrian

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Robert Raschke]

Not sure when Mr. Adams wrote this, but I think it was mid-90's.

  First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn
  numbers into letters with ASCII -- and we thought it was a typewriter.
  Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With
  the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.
	Douglas Adams

I do have to wonder about the whole TV on your mobile craze.
Apparently, there's now "features" made specifically for the xx-small
screen. Does anyone on this list actually watch stuff on those dinky
screens? My eyes (and maybe imagination) are not good enough to enjoy
that.

Robby

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Steve Simon]

> I do have to wonder about the whole TV on your mobile craze.

I share your scepticism however employer doesn't, I find
mob-TV meetings are an excellent forum for bullshit bingo.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[dave.l]

Quote from a comedian (Rhod Gilbert. maybe?):
"Well... No. I've got a TV, OK? I'm not interested in watching TV on my phone for the same reason that I'm not interested in having a piss in my tumble dryer".

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Michaelian Ennis]

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Die, thread die!

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Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Wes Kussmaul]

Robert Raschke wrote:
> Not sure when Mr. Adams wrote this, but I think it was mid-90's.
>
>   First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn
>   numbers into letters with ASCII -- and we thought it was a typewriter.
>   Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With
>   the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.
> 	Douglas Adams
>

I believe Mr. Adams first made that observation in Delphi, which I
founded in 1981.

Now, what is the nature of the space that the PC leaves after it
disappears?

--
Wes Kussmaul

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Wes Kussmaul]

Robert Raschke wrote:
> Apparently, there's now "features" made specifically for the xx-small
> screen. Does anyone on this list actually watch stuff on those dinky
> screens? My eyes (and maybe imagination) are not good enough to enjoy that.
>
If your personal token happens to have a screen, then you'll use it on
those occasions when a display / keyboard / flip-down eyepiece isn't
available. The "PC" will become a ubiquitous passive user interface
device, the new pay phone.

As in: I've been showing videos of my daughter's wedding this past
Wednesday (by a Pondere tribal elder in full regalia) (will post on
kussmaul.net) on my Treo because producing a laptop at a restaurant
gathering would be even more gauche than passing around the Treo.

> Re Douglas Adams's comment that "...we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII..."
True story: Delphi began as an online encyclopedia. When we went to
license the text of the Cadillac Modern Encyclopedia, its owner, Max
Shapiro, thought our project was folly because everyone knew that
computers only worked with numbers, not letters.

Apologies to those who wanted the thread to die. I'll shoot it now.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Rodolfo kix García]

> Robert William Fuller wrote:
>> erik quanstrom wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> these are tetonic forces.  there's nothing directly
>>
>> As a geologist, I can't let this one slip (pun intended.)  It's
>> tectonic.
>
> Being of german ancestry, I can't let it slip either..  Maybe Eric meant
> Teutonic?  Either would fit, and neither requries UTF-8 :-)
>
> Off topic? We don't need no topic, we're the
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Knights who say ni!
>
> 	Adrian

In Spain, a woman with big tits is a "Tetona", be carefull with this
forces :-)

>
>
>


-- 
Rodolfo García AKA kix
http://www.kix.es/
EA4ERH (@IN80ER)

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[matt]

>>
>> As a geologist, I can't let this one slip (pun intended.)  It's
>> tectonic.
>
> Being of german ancestry, I can't let it slip either..  Maybe Eric
> meant Teutonic?  Either would fit, and neither requries UTF-8 :-)


Dammnit, always wait until you've read the unread

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[matt]

Robert William Fuller wrote:
> erik quanstrom wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> these are tetonic forces.  there's nothing directly
>
> As a geologist, I can't let this one slip (pun intended.)  It's tectonic.
>
He might have meant Teutonic

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

> 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
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

> 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.
>

Somebody call the X guys and tell them that they've been using too
many buttons for 20 years and THAT'S why their system has failed.

John

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[andrey mirtchovski]

My sad commentary is that for whatever reason plan9 keeps attracting
those who like to "talk, talk, talk", and not those who like to "code,
code, code".

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

9fans is 99 out of 100 times all "code, code, code." You can ignore me as
an irrelevancy and read the other 99/100 posts. Good luck deep diving.

--On Tuesday, July 01, 2008 1:23 AM -0600 andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:

> My sad commentary is that for whatever reason plan9 keeps attracting
> those who like to "talk, talk, talk", and not those who like to "code,
> code, code".
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Federico G. Benavento]

eris,

stop trolling and sending apples to the parties you're not invited.

--
Federico G. Benavento

(sent with opera 9.5 via linuxemu+equis)

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Andrés Domínguez]

2008/7/1 Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com>:
> eris,
>
> stop trolling and sending apples to the parties you're not invited.

Eris _Discordia_, good nick for a troll:

discordia: f discord

--
Andrés

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

The meat of this post:

1. Since these series of postings are considered, for some reason 
incomprehensible to me, "trolling" I'll simply stop posting. Good luck to 
y'all.

2. The core point which still hasn't gone to a single 9fans' head is that 
you either comply with public demand or stop asking for public recognition. 
And the public is not "a bunch of idiots." This thread's original post 
asked why Plan 9 isn't recommended on Slashdot even for tasks it seems to 
be good at. I responded with my opinion: Plan 9 in its current form is and 
will always remain a "niche" OS, with a rather tight niche.

3. More than a few 9fans tried to ridicule me. Such attitude won't get them 
very far I assure them, even if they have a valid message to convey. I hope 
they've at least had a good laugh--that makes me feel the whole affair 
wasn't a waste of time.

4. The apple with καλλιστι on it is totally Russ', for he posted 
the most sensible response. Thank you Russ.

5. Oh, and that thing on (4) is the Discordian transliteration of whatever 
was written on the apple. Greek text input to a mail client on Windows. 
Check if you can read it on the "mother of UTF-8." If you do you're 
"almost" there, if you don't...

----------------------------------------

--On Tuesday, July 01, 2008 9:41 AM +0000 "Federico G. Benavento" 
<benavento@gmail.com> wrote:

> eris,
>
> stop trolling and sending apples to the parties you're not invited.
>
> --
> Federico G. Benavento
>
> (sent with opera 9.5 via linuxemu+equis)
>
>

Challenging is not trolling, but I'll keep quiet if it suits you better.

----------------------------------------

--On Tuesday, July 01, 2008 1:19 PM +0200 hiro <23hiro@googlemail.com> 
wrote:

> Haha, sarcasm at it's finest.
> Eris, you are my hero.
>
> --
> hiro
>
>

Is "that" sarcastic, too? I hope not, for that'd break my heart.

----------------------------------------

--On Tuesday, July 01, 2008 10:06 AM -0400 cummij@rpi.edu wrote:

>> 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.
>
> then migrate, already ...
>
> john
>

I did. So did many others. Plan 9's loss, though I don't expect "you" to 
admit it.

----------------------------------------

--On Tuesday, July 01, 2008 5:36 PM -0300 Iruata Souza 
<iru.muzgo@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> like you do with your system, right?

I don't. I've got no "system." Others do and others did, and they succeeded 
and they have larger happier user bases. That, of course, was never 
"intended" for Plan 9 you seem to imply.

>> 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).
>>
> sorry if I can't write a flash player in two minutes. it won't happen
> again.

Last chance for you! Seriously though, you had over two decades to first 
catch "down" and then catch "up" and you didn't. It wasn't your intention 
they say.

----------------------------------------

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

> 4. The apple with καλλιστι on it is totally Russ', for he posted
> the most sensible response. Thank you Russ.
>
> 5. Oh, and that thing on (4) is the Discordian transliteration of whatever
> was written on the apple. Greek text input to a mail client on Windows.
> Check if you can read it on the "mother of UTF-8." If you do you're
> "almost" there, if you don't...

i have been using non-latin characters with plan 9 tools on unix
and later on plan 9 since 1991 or so both in filenames and data.

the fact that utf-8 just works even in environments not designed for it,
is a testament to its excellent design.

unfortunately, unix tools no longer do the right thing with utf-8.
they've gotten too smart for that.  locales get in the way.

- erik

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[a]

// 5. Oh, and that thing on (4) is the Discordian transliteration of whatever 
// was written on the apple. Greek text input to a mail client on Windows. 
// Check if you can read it on the "mother of UTF-8." If you do you're 
// "almost" there, if you don't...

I was surprised by this, so I actually fired up my XP install. Yes, it looks
like you finally can get some non-latin characters into thing. Good for
them. It looks like the command prompt even *almost* gets it right:
	?α???στ?
Well, three characters for eight isn't so bad, right? And it's just glyphs,
right? Surely the gui stuff does better. Let's stick it in the search box...
ooo, look at that! All characters show up! And the search... looks for
"?a???st?". Uh, what? Note the transposition into roughly similar latin
characters. It clearly has some understanding of what the characters
are, but has decided to look for something else. IE and Firefox will let
me search for such things properly, but (as with the καλλιστι in your
original message) the tops of many of the returned glyphs are cut off.

That is to say, the Unicode is *almost* there.

Conversely, in Plan 9, the following involves a number of tools
certainly not designed for the task, but works just fine:
	{echo /καλλιστι ; echo '-/^$/,+/^$/'} |
	 sam -d `{grep -l [Α-ω] /mail/fs/mbox/*/body} >[2] /dev/null |
	 sed -n '2,$p'
I'm curious how you'd do something similar elsewhere.

You really just haven't bothered, have you?
Anthony

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Federico G. Benavento]

I have no idea what that discordian crap is nor what your
intentions are, but I do know that you're either a troll
or complete idiot.

what do you try to achieve ... it is the wrong'em boyo

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[John Waters]

He's clearly some ESR clone that's trying to get his "hip right wing
guy" polemic on.
Move aside, John Malkovich, there's a new a**hole on the map. =)

 Its obvious to me now that Linux is a victim of its own popularity
and development model. I have always preferred BSD's way of doing
things and the folks that support it.. except for Theo, that is..

I stepped away from Linux around Kernel 1.2.13, since then the amount
of crap that has been dumped into the kernel is simply astonishing. I
am 100% sure that, now that vmware runs on OS X, I will be finished
with linux for good once I get back to the states.I honestly think
that the #1 goal of linux kernel developers is to make sure that the
kernel takes 20 minutes to build on whatever the current fastest
processor is.

To quote dmr: "The rational prisoner exploits the weak places, creates
order from chaos: instead collectives like FSF vindicate their jailers
by building cells almost compatible with existing ones, albeit it with
more features."  Linux has become a Disneyland supermax parody of what
it set out to imitate.

As for Plan9's technical issues, I would rather have something small,
fast, and complete for the things that i need to do than millions of
lines of code that I don't need, want, or know about doing God knows
what in the background; Plan9's license issues just gives scientists
the excuse to pretend to be politicians. The only thing worse than a
politician is an armchair politician. The Noam Chomsky thing only
works if you focus on issues that really matter... Oh and being damned
brilliant helps, too.

jcw

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:44 AM, Federico G. Benavento
<benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have no idea what that discordian crap is nor what your
> intentions are, but I do know that you're either a troll
> or complete idiot.
>
> what do you try to achieve ... it is the wrong'em boyo
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

> 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
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[cummij]

> 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.

then migrate, already ...

john

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[ron minnich]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:06 AM,  <cummij@rpi.edu> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> then migrate, already ...
>

he's having more fun trolling.

ron

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

> 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
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[John Stalker]

Maybe this is a troll, but I'll answer anyway.

I would say 1, 2, 3, and 5 benefit from using plan9.
4 and 7 don't notice much whether they are using plan9.
6 aren't likely to get to use plan9, though their jobs
would be a lot easier if they could use acid (the
debugger, not the recreational substance).

> 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.

Personally, I never wondered.  But I don't really care either.

--
John Stalker
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin
tel +353 1 896 1983
fax +353 1 896 2282

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Plan 9 is not for end users.  Plan 9 is for programmers.
>

Maybe more appropriate in your case - Plan 9 is not for Windows sys admins.

Please describe the process of accessing an audio device on a computer
across the room with windows and describe how you can do it from the
shell...

       -eric

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Plan 9 is not for end users.  Plan 9 is for programmers.
>>
>
> Maybe more appropriate in your case - Plan 9 is not for Windows sys admins.
>
> Please describe the process of accessing an audio device on a computer
> across the room with windows and describe how you can do it from the
> shell...
>
>        -eric

Eric, I don't know what this "audio" thing you CS/CE type researchers
are using but us lowlifes just need Firefox and Excel before we can
use Plan 9.  I'm afraid that until you can provide those, Joe Public
will never use Plan 9 and it will be forever doomed to run only on
supercomputers and storage systems and in research settings.

John "Bob Dobbs" Floren

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Jul 1, 2008, at 9:32 AM, john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote:
> Eric, I don't know what this "audio" thing you CS/CE type researchers
> are using but us lowlifes just need Firefox and Excel before we can
> use Plan 9.  I'm afraid that until you can provide those, Joe Public
> will never use Plan 9 and it will be forever doomed to run only on
> supercomputers and storage systems and in research settings.

-> WARNING: It's time to be brutally honest again. Take a deep breath.
<-

I'm 15. I run Plan 9 on a 20" iMac in the corner of my room at home. I
hardly use Excel, and I don't usually browse the web on Plan 9 (or
with Firefox - I use Safari on Mac). Yet I find myself using Plan 9
50% of my computing day. The commonest two things I do are coding and
document typesetting. I like Plan 9's completeness of programming
environment (I'd like to see Ruby beat lib*) and the authenticity of
the typesetting tools (the original reason I started with Plan 9) was
compelling.

Yep. I'm a nerd. But I'm not in a CS/CR (at least not yet). And yes, I
do normal stuff too. I browse the web. I listen to music. I watch
movies. And unlike most people my age, I go to school and succeed. (I
don't play sports because I have a vision disability.)

Please reconsider your statement.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Dan Cross]

(But sarcasm seems to escape you....  :-))

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:35 PM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:
> On Jul 1, 2008, at 9:32 AM, john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote:
>>
>> Eric, I don't know what this "audio" thing you CS/CE type researchers
>> are using but us lowlifes just need Firefox and Excel before we can
>> use Plan 9.  I'm afraid that until you can provide those, Joe Public
>> will never use Plan 9 and it will be forever doomed to run only on
>> supercomputers and storage systems and in research settings.
>
> -> WARNING: It's time to be brutally honest again. Take a deep breath. <-
>
> I'm 15. I run Plan 9 on a 20" iMac in the corner of my room at home. I
> hardly use Excel, and I don't usually browse the web on Plan 9 (or with
> Firefox - I use Safari on Mac). Yet I find myself using Plan 9 50% of my
> computing day. The commonest two things I do are coding and document
> typesetting. I like Plan 9's completeness of programming environment (I'd
> like to see Ruby beat lib*) and the authenticity of the typesetting tools
> (the original reason I started with Plan 9) was compelling.
>
> Yep. I'm a nerd. But I'm not in a CS/CR (at least not yet). And yes, I do
> normal stuff too. I browse the web. I listen to music. I watch movies. And
> unlike most people my age, I go to school and succeed. (I don't play sports
> because I have a vision disability.)
>
> Please reconsider your statement.
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

If only we transmitted messages by voice. It's much easier to
understand the sarcastic nature. (And you need to get me in a good
mood.)

On Jul 1, 2008, at 5:53 PM, Dan Cross wrote:

> (But sarcasm seems to escape you....  :-))
>
> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:35 PM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com>
> wrote:
>> On Jul 1, 2008, at 9:32 AM, john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote:
>>>
>>> Eric, I don't know what this "audio" thing you CS/CE type
>>> researchers
>>> are using but us lowlifes just need Firefox and Excel before we can
>>> use Plan 9.  I'm afraid that until you can provide those, Joe Public
>>> will never use Plan 9 and it will be forever doomed to run only on
>>> supercomputers and storage systems and in research settings.
>>
>> -> WARNING: It's time to be brutally honest again. Take a deep
>> breath. <-
>>
>> I'm 15. I run Plan 9 on a 20" iMac in the corner of my room at
>> home. I
>> hardly use Excel, and I don't usually browse the web on Plan 9 (or
>> with
>> Firefox - I use Safari on Mac). Yet I find myself using Plan 9 50%
>> of my
>> computing day. The commonest two things I do are coding and document
>> typesetting. I like Plan 9's completeness of programming
>> environment (I'd
>> like to see Ruby beat lib*) and the authenticity of the typesetting
>> tools
>> (the original reason I started with Plan 9) was compelling.
>>
>> Yep. I'm a nerd. But I'm not in a CS/CR (at least not yet). And
>> yes, I do
>> normal stuff too. I browse the web. I listen to music. I watch
>> movies. And
>> unlike most people my age, I go to school and succeed. (I don't
>> play sports
>> because I have a vision disability.)
>>
>> Please reconsider your statement.
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

> On Jul 1, 2008, at 9:32 AM, john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote:
>> Eric, I don't know what this "audio" thing you CS/CE type researchers
>> are using but us lowlifes just need Firefox and Excel before we can
>> use Plan 9.  I'm afraid that until you can provide those, Joe Public
>> will never use Plan 9 and it will be forever doomed to run only on
>> supercomputers and storage systems and in research settings.
>
> -> WARNING: It's time to be brutally honest again. Take a deep breath.
> <-
>
> I'm 15. I run Plan 9 on a 20" iMac in the corner of my room at home. I
> hardly use Excel, and I don't usually browse the web on Plan 9 (or
> with Firefox - I use Safari on Mac). Yet I find myself using Plan 9
> 50% of my computing day. The commonest two things I do are coding and
> document typesetting. I like Plan 9's completeness of programming
> environment (I'd like to see Ruby beat lib*) and the authenticity of
> the typesetting tools (the original reason I started with Plan 9) was
> compelling.
>
> Yep. I'm a nerd. But I'm not in a CS/CR (at least not yet). And yes, I
> do normal stuff too. I browse the web. I listen to music. I watch
> movies. And unlike most people my age, I go to school and succeed. (I
> don't play sports because I have a vision disability.)
>
> Please reconsider your statement.

Pietro, once again you've completely failed to see the intent of a
message.  I was pre-empting Eris' idiot complaints by pretending audio
was too research-y and complicated for the "Joe Public" he is always
referring to.  I wasn't asking for a "brutally honest" description of
your computing habits, although some of the information does explain
your previous patterns of posting.

You apparently succeed at school; didn't they teach you about sarcasm,
satire, irony, all the various methods people use to insult and mock
each other without actually coming out and saying, "I hate you and
hope you die"?


John

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Russ Cox]

As a first approximation, there are two types of computer users.
There are the ones who just want something that does everything
they need it to, out of the box, and then there are the ones who
don't care so much what it can do at first, but they want to be able
to adapt the system to their needs as time goes on.
If you want, you can call the former "end users" and the latter
"programmers."  These camps have very different mindsets.

Most of your arguments seem to be about creating a system for
the "end users," but as Rob said, Plan 9 is not primarily for them.
Plan 9 is for people who want a system they can understand and customize
and adapt to their own purposes.  I don't mean setting a couple of buttons
in a preference dialog, either.  I mean writing actual programs to make
the system do something its designers did not explicitly anticipate.
When the computer doesn't already have some feature, it's a question
of thinking "this dumb system should already have that feature"
versus thinking "how can I add that feature?"

The fact that Plan 9 is not targeted at end users doesn't mean that
it's not usable by end users.  It just means that the system often
needs to be customized (by programmers) to fit the needs of the
particular end users.  For example, Coraid programmers built
software to adapt Plan 9 into a particular kind of end-user storage
server.  Rangboom adapted Plan 9 into a different kind of end-user
storage service.  In the past, other companies have done other things.

It doesn't have to be companies that are customizing the system for
other users.  Eric Nichols studies natural language processing and
has built a customized acme environment to speed manual translation
of text.  Nemo created a very interesting computing environment
on top of Plan 9 that is popular in his computer science department
and used by non-developers.  I know a handful of very happy end
users of venti, vbackup, and vac.

Notice that I haven't defended any of the individual Plan 9 tools--sam,
acme, rc, rio, fossil, venti, and so on.  There are people with strong
opinions on both sides for each of these.  The specific details of a
particular tool are far less important than the overall simplicity and
flexibility of the entire system.  That's not to say that no one likes the
tools.  Plan 9 from User Space exists exactly to provide the tools to
a broader audience, and I've heard from a surprising number of people
who were thrilled to find a new version of sam.  But no individual tool
is the point, and the Plan 9 tools alone are not Plan 9.

John Lions famously said about Sixth Edition Unix that, ``The whole
documentation is not unreasonably transportable in a student's
briefcase,'' and the same is true of Plan 9 today.  It's a system that
people can keep entirely in their head, that they can adapt to
their own needs and understand and fix if it breaks.


> The fact the UTF-8 was first "implemented" on Plan 9 has nothing to do with
> Plan 9's funtionality as an OS.

One way to read this sentence is as saying "Plan 9's support of UTF-8 doesn't
distinguish it anymore; other OSes now support UTF-8 too."  This is almost
true, although in my experience none of those systems approach Plan 9
for how everything UTF-8 just works out of the box.  (I still don't know
how to put UTF-8 in file names in Linux, for example, or to tell whether
a given file name is intended to be interpreted as UTF-8 or as Latin-1
or as some other character set.)

Another way to read this sentence is as saying "UTF-8 could have been first
implemented just as easily on some other OS as on Plan 9."  This is the
interpretation that Rob was replying to, and it's simply not true.
UTF-8 is as clean as it is because Ken Thompson came up with
a clean design, but that design alone would not have been enough.

Rob's history at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/utf-8-history.txt
doesn't emphasize this as much as it could, but it does mention it:
in order for the design to be an acceptable proposal, it had to be
implemented in a real system.  Ken designed UTF-8 on a Wednesday
night, and by lunch on Saturday, Ken and Rob had completely
converted Plan 9--libraries, programs, graphics, and text files--to use it.
That was necessary to get the proposal accepted, and there are very
few systems out there in which something like that would be possible,
that quickly.

That's a key strength of Plan 9.  It is powerful enough to use well, simple
enough to understand completely, and small enough to make wholesale
changes to the system quickly.

In its early days, Unix was like that--Ken implemented pipes and converted
all the existing programs like grep to act as filters overnight--but 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.

Let's run with this, because it is actually a good example of the
philosophical difference here.

Bash is full of useful features, yes, but wow is it complicated.
These features might make it quicker to get some particular
thing done, but they impose a steep learning curve and also
make the software more complex and fragile.  When bash
breaks, about all you can do is keep the many pieces.
Rc is a nice simple shell that one person can completely
understand, and if it breaks, you can read the source code,
see what's going on, and fix it.

Here's a fantastic bash bug that a friend ran across the other day.
I suggested that he put "set -o allexport" in his .bash_profile, like I do,
and when he did on his Linux machine, he lost the ability to run xpdf.
It spewed tons of mysterious garbage about syntax errors:

    /bin/bash: _openssl: line 25: syntax error near unexpected token `('
    /bin/bash: _openssl: line 25: ` -@(in|out|oid))'
    /bin/bash: error importing function definition for `_openssl'
    /bin/bash: _service: line 4: syntax error in conditional expression:
    unexpected token `('
    /bin/bash: _service: line 4: syntax error near `@(*'
    /bin/bash: _service: line 4: ` [[ ${COMP_WORDS[0]} !=
    @(*init.d/!(functions|~)|service) ]] && return 0;'
    /bin/bash: error importing function definition for `_service'
    /bin/bash: _python: line 17: syntax error near unexpected token `('
    /bin/bash: _python: line 17: ` !(python|-?))'
    /bin/bash: error importing function definition for `_python'
    /bin/bash: _apt_cache: line 7: syntax error in conditional expression:
    unexpected token `('
    /bin/bash: _apt_cache: line 7: syntax error near `@(a'
    /bin/bash: _apt_cache: line 7: ` if [[ ${COMP_WORDS[i]} ==
    @(add|depends|dotty|policy|rdepends|madison|show?(pkg|src|)) ]]; then'
    /bin/bash: error importing function definition for `_apt_cache'
    /bin/bash: _aspell: line 5: syntax error near unexpected token `('
    /bin/bash: _aspell: line 5: ` @(-c|-p|check))'
    /bin/bash: error importing function definition for `_aspell'
    /bin/bash: _java_classes: line 5: syntax error in conditional expression:
    unexpected token `('
    /bin/bash: _java_classes: line 5: syntax error near
    ...

We spent quite a while tracking down what this garbage meant.
What happened?  Well, set -o allexport makes bash export
all of its environment variables, including shell functions.
Bash also has a flag you can set that says whether or not to
allow certain extended syntaxes.  The functions in question
were installed by the system as part of the autocompletion
magic, and they use the special syntax, after turning it on.
But when they get exported to the environment, there's no
way for the new shell to know that it needs the special syntax,
so it gets tons of syntax errors trying to reparse them.
Why xpdf?  Well, that was just the first #!/bin/bash script
that ran into this problem.  Why hadn't I run into this?
I don't source /etc/bash.bashrc like the default profiles do.

This bug results from the interaction of at least four different
features: allexport, the special syntax, function exporting,
and the Linux distribution's helpfully-added completion
functions.  And it's only the shell.  If the shell is too complicated to
understand, what about the rest of the system?

Plan 9 is filled with simple tools that actually do one thing well.
That often means a lack of bells and whistles, because the whistles
you might find useful and the ones I might find useful are mostly
different, and putting them all in makes bloated, fragile software
like bash.

Plan 9 is, above all else, simple and malleable.  I'll take that over
complex and brittle any day.

All that said, it sounds like you're not interested in a system that
is easy to program, easy to understand, and easy to adapt to
your needs, if light on traditional out-of-the-box features.
It sounds like you're focused on end-user do-everything features
rather than the ability to program the system to be a better
computing environment for you.  If that's the case, then
Plan 9 isn't for you.

Russ

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Uriel]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 12:32 AM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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?

Is dead. Utah2000.

uriel

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

> 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
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

> 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
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Rob Pike]

    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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

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.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Federico G. Benavento]

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


--
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[bblochl]

Federico G. Benavento wrote:
>> Plan 9 is not for end users.  Plan 9 is for programmers.
>>
>
>
>
That has a very long beard! Isn`t programming without endusers just like
wanking?

bblochl

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Federico G. Benavento]

> That has a very long beard! Isn`t programming without endusers just like
> wanking?

how is that related to Plan 9 being for programmers?

--
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 550 bytes --]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 2:21 AM, Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > That has a very long beard! Isn`t programming without endusers just like
> > wanking?
>
> how is that related to Plan 9 being for programmers?
>

I don't even think it's a fair comparison.  All an end user is is the target
audience of a system.  It's not like the programs being written aren't being
used.  They're being used by the ultimate end users of Plan 9 which happen
to be other programmers.

Dave


>
> --
> Federico G. Benavento
>

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Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[hiro]

I am not even a programmer. I'm using plan9 and inferno because the
systems are so simple and flexible, that I only have to use two-liner
shell scripts for my tasks.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Uriel]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 11:21 AM, Federico G. Benavento
<benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
>> That has a very long beard! Isn`t programming without endusers just like
>> wanking?
>
> how is that related to Plan 9 being for programmers?
>

That means that Plan 9 is like porn for hackers.

uriel

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[bblochl]

Uriel wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 11:21 AM, Federico G. Benavento
> <benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> That has a very long beard! Isn`t programming without endusers just like
>>> wanking?
>>>
>> how is that related to Plan 9 being for programmers?
>>
>>
>
> That means that Plan 9 is like porn for hackers.
>
> uriel
>
>
>
I would say that is hard core stuff for hackers. (Some need that urgently!)

bblochl

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Jack Johnson]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 173 bytes --]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:20 AM, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:

> That means that Plan 9 is like porn for hackers.
>

Now when can I get that on a t-shirt? :)

-J

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Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[ron minnich]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 11:53 PM, bblochl <bblochl@fh-lausitz.de> wrote:

> That has a very long beard! Isn`t programming without endusers just like
> wanking?

If I had a dime for every time I've heard this ...

First time I heard it was about Unix, ca. 1976.

Usually I hear it from grouchy old guys. One of them fought the demise
of punched cards and paper tape with great bitterness.

I'm going to assume you're joking.

ron

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 528 bytes --]

>
>
>    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.
>

I think I just heard the sound of a nail being struck on the head.

I do find myself wanting Lisp, Scheme, and Haskell and all my other weird
programming toys for Plan 9 too.  I believe Haskell and Scheme are handled,
but has there ever been a Common Lisp implementation for it?   Perhaps I
should look into a port of SBCL or something.

Dave

>
> -rob
>
>

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Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

>>
>>
>>    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.
>>
>
> I think I just heard the sound of a nail being struck on the head.
>
> I do find myself wanting Lisp, Scheme, and Haskell and all my other weird
> programming toys for Plan 9 too.  I believe Haskell and Scheme are handled,
> but has there ever been a Common Lisp implementation for it?   Perhaps I
> should look into a port of SBCL or something.
>
> Dave
>

Yes please! I know I'd use it.

John

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[John Waters]

I have always felt guilty about wanting Common LISP on Plan 9; but I
am not entirely sure why.
John

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 4:35 PM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>    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.
>
> I think I just heard the sound of a nail being struck on the head.
>
> I do find myself wanting Lisp, Scheme, and Haskell and all my other weird
> programming toys for Plan 9 too.  I believe Haskell and Scheme are handled,
> but has there ever been a Common Lisp implementation for it?   Perhaps I
> should look into a port of SBCL or something.
> Dave
>>
>> -rob
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1128 bytes --]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 6:59 AM, John Waters <jcwjr215@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have always felt guilty about wanting Common LISP on Plan 9; but I
> am not entirely sure why.
> John
>

Eh, there's lots of code for Common Lisp out there that'd be nice to run on
Plan 9 in my opinion.  I don't think we're alone in our feelings :-).

A lot of time Unix and Lisp have seem a bit at odds... I think there's been
papers written on the topic even.

Dave


>
> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 4:35 PM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>    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.
> >
> > I think I just heard the sound of a nail being struck on the head.
> >
> > I do find myself wanting Lisp, Scheme, and Haskell and all my other weird
> > programming toys for Plan 9 too.  I believe Haskell and Scheme are
> handled,
> > but has there ever been a Common Lisp implementation for it?   Perhaps I
> > should look into a port of SBCL or something.
> > Dave
> >>
> >> -rob
> >>
> >
> >
>
>

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Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

> 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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[a]

// 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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> 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.

you've missed my point.  most of the dummies books on software try
to explain how to deal with very complex, organically developed
systems that lack any central design idea.  the fact that it requires
the reader to admit to being a dummy to buy the book is telling
enough.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

I still don't get your point.

And does your "point" include these "For Dummies" books?

1. Alan Simpson - Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition For Dummies
2. Allen Wyatt - Cleaning Windows XP For Dummies
3. Barry Burd - Beginning Programming With Java For Dummies
4. Bill Sempf - Visual Basic 2005 For Dummies.pdf
5. Damon Dean And Andy Cowitt - Macromedia Studio 8 All-In-One Desk
Reference For Dummies
6. Dee-Ann LeBlanc - Linux For Dummies
7. Frederic Jones - Digital Photography, Just The Steps For Dummies
8. Steve Holzner - Ajax For Dummies
9. Kevin Beaver - Hacking For Dummies
10. Janine Warner - Dreamweaver 8 For Dummies

Does Dreamweaver 8 sound like a piece of "very complex," "organically
developed" software, "and" lacking "a central design idea?"

"For Dummies" books are essentially non sequiturs arising from marketing
schemes. RTFM is really the way to go, but you need to have an "incentive,"
a "promise," to RTFM. Obviously, sometimes the incentive is replaced by a
compelling to obey company/university/institution policies.

--On Monday, June 30, 2008 4:11 PM -0700 Skip Tavakkolian
<9nut@9netics.com> wrote:

>> 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.
>
> you've missed my point.  most of the dummies books on software try
> to explain how to deal with very complex, organically developed
> systems that lack any central design idea.  the fact that it requires
> the reader to admit to being a dummy to buy the book is telling
> enough.
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Iruata Souza]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:01 AM, Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> "For Dummies" books are essentially non sequiturs arising from marketing
> schemes. RTFM is really the way to go, but you need to have an "incentive,"
> a "promise," to RTFM. Obviously, sometimes the incentive is replaced by a
> compelling to obey company/university/institution policies.

I'm glad to see curiosity or research are not incentive nor promise.

thanks,
iru

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[DaveL]

> UTF-8in an English-only "user" paradigm is only extravagance.

You are naïve.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Eris Discordia]

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!
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[michael block]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 4:45 PM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> --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!
>>
> 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

venti eliminates step one and simplifies step two.

> 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.

venti /is/ a version control system. it's practicly the same thing as
git, but with sealed arenas

> 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.

backing up with venti is as simple as letting a cron job run

regards,
michael khayyam ravenhurst

--
i apologize in advance if gmail has in anyway mutilated this messege.
stay beautiful!

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

> 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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Charles Forsyth]

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

>come again?

i thought it meant that he always types in cc commands on unix.
of course you could do that too with 8c/8l but normally on plan 9 i
create a mkfile except for the tiniest one-off things.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

I do this:

	fn build {
		8c $1^.c && 8l -o $1 $1^.8 && rm $1^.8
	}
	acmef sieve.c # acmef opens acme with fixed-width font in one column
	build sieve
	sieve 2053

when I need to build a one-file program.

That's another good argument against Plan 9 that Unix users can make:
why do I have to run two programs to compile a C source code file when
Unix needed only one? I've grown used to it - build and mk help.

On Jun 30, 2008, at 11:36 AM, Charles Forsyth wrote:

>>> For example the
>>> role of make as an equivalent for cc is not self-evident for a
>>> traditional normal OS-user.
>
>> come again?
>
> i thought it meant that he always types in cc commands on unix.
> of course you could do that too with 8c/8l but normally on plan 9 i
> create a mkfile except for the tiniest one-off things.
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Steven D. Vormwald]

erik quanstrom wrote:
>> 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.
>

Looking too much like UNIX while acting differently is part of the
problem.  However, the bigger part is that the existing documentation
can be a bit daunting for someone who is new to Plan 9, and still has
only a vague notion of how the system works.  Like the UNIX man pages,
the documentation is very detailed, and great for a reference.  But many
new users need a bit of hand-holding, of the "Trust me, you want to run
this command.  You'll learn why/how later, but for now, just RUN THIS
COMMAND." sort.  At least until the 'new user' anxiety dies down a bit,
and the return of rational thought allows one to digest the more
extensive documentation.

Besides, isn't not being UNIX one of the prominent features of Plan 9?

Steven Vormwald

PS: John, thanks for the link to the RIT Intro paper (in another message
in this thread).  It helped a lot.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

> erik quanstrom wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>
> Looking too much like UNIX while acting differently is part of the
> problem.  However, the bigger part is that the existing documentation
> can be a bit daunting for someone who is new to Plan 9, and still has
> only a vague notion of how the system works.  Like the UNIX man pages,
> the documentation is very detailed, and great for a reference.  But many
> new users need a bit of hand-holding, of the "Trust me, you want to run
> this command.  You'll learn why/how later, but for now, just RUN THIS
> COMMAND." sort.  At least until the 'new user' anxiety dies down a bit,
> and the return of rational thought allows one to digest the more
> extensive documentation.
>
> Besides, isn't not being UNIX one of the prominent features of Plan 9?
>
> Steven Vormwald
>
> PS: John, thanks for the link to the RIT Intro paper (in another message
> in this thread).  It helped a lot.

I've been thinking of writing a "Plan 9 for Dummies" style thing;
Nemo's book is excellent but definitely aimed at someone most
interested in writing code immediately.  Basically stealing the format
from all UNIX beginner's books ever written, it would have a chapters
about logging on, basic rio usage, basic commands, the file system
layout, acme and sam (to match the standard vi and emacs sections!),
rc programming, and C under Plan 9.  Imagine chapter one of Nemo's
book except greatly expanded.

Now, before I set quill to parchment (or fingers to keyboard as may
be), has anyone else started something like this?


John

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

 I have not even started such thing, but, if you go for it and want help,
count me in :)

> I've been thinking of writing a "Plan 9 for Dummies" style thing;
>  Nemo's book is excellent but definitely aimed at someone most
>  interested in writing code immediately.  Basically stealing the format
>  from all UNIX beginner's books ever written, it would have a chapters
>  about logging on, basic rio usage, basic commands, the file system
>  layout, acme and sam (to match the standard vi and emacs sections!),
>  rc programming, and C under Plan 9.  Imagine chapter one of Nemo's
>  book except greatly expanded.
>
>  Now, before I set quill to parchment (or fingers to keyboard as may
>  be), has anyone else started something like this?
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Tom Lieber]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Francisco J Ballesteros <nemo@lsub.org> wrote:
>  I have not even started such thing, but, if you go for it and want help,
> count me in :)

And I would read it! :)

--
Tom Lieber
http://AllTom.com/

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Jun 30, 2008, at 1:34 PM, john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote:
> Now, before I set quill to parchment (or fingers to keyboard as may
> be), has anyone else started something like this?

I was planning on doing something of the sort...

On Jun 30, 2008, at 5:46 PM, erik quanstrom wrote:
> this guide was writen at coraid by michael covington.
> the document proclaims itself to be:

...until I saw this. Should this go into /sys/doc unmodified? Good
luck, Mr. Covington.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[John Stalker]

> Looking too much like UNIX while acting differently is part of the
> problem.  However, the bigger part is that the existing documentation
> can be a bit daunting for someone who is new to Plan 9, and still has
> only a vague notion of how the system works.  Like the UNIX man pages,
> the documentation is very detailed, and great for a reference.  But many
> new users need a bit of hand-holding, of the "Trust me, you want to run
> this command.  You'll learn why/how later, but for now, just RUN THIS
> COMMAND." sort.  At least until the 'new user' anxiety dies down a bit,
> and the return of rational thought allows one to digest the more
> extensive documentation.

I think there is another, somewhat related, problem.  Like most of my
generation, I learned UNIX at university, on machines administered by
other people.  By the time I had to install and administer systems
myself I already knew a lot.  With plan9 you have to learn to be a
user and administrator at the same time.  That's one reason I would be
very reluctant to recommend trying plan9 to most people I know.  I'm
afraid there's not much we can do about this.
--
John Stalker
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin
tel +353 1 896 1983
fax +353 1 896 2282

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[a]

This is a very good point. I mostly learned Unix in a corporate
environment, but the same logic holds: somebody else had set
up and maintained the systems.

// I'm afraid there's not much we can do about this.

Other, obviously, than getting uni types to use it there. Plan 9
(like Inferno) has quite a bit to offer from pedagogical view.

// Trinity College Dublin

Pretty campus, warm sweatshirts. Convince your IT folks. ;-)

anthony

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[sqweek]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 2:27 AM,  <a@9srv.net> wrote:
> This is a very good point. I mostly learned Unix in a corporate
> environment, but the same logic holds: somebody else had set
> up and maintained the systems.
>
> // I'm afraid there's not much we can do about this.
>
> Other, obviously, than getting uni types to use it there. Plan 9
> (like Inferno) has quite a bit to offer from pedagogical view.

 Also, public 9grids. Though judging by gdiaz's experiences with
sirviente, there's a bit of work to be done in that area - I get the
impression things are fairly unstable once the machine gets under
memory pressure.
-sqweek

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[gdiaz]

hello

256 MB of ram fills quite easily when using a fossil+venti and when trying new incarnations of upas/fs :), i can't even compile some ports of gnu things ☺. Fortunately this will change in august, as 9grid.es will have 1Gb of memory.

about the unstability, i should disable swap partition to see if that fix something ☺

greetings,

gabi
PS: sorry for the off-topic non-sad comentary :P

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

> 256 MB of ram fills quite easily when using a fossil+venti
> and when trying new incarnations of upas/fs :),

the manual pages for venti and fossil do spell out
a number of parameters to control memory usage.
but you probablly knew that.

running the fs on the same machine as the cpu server
can be a problem when used heavily.  plan 9 overcommits
physical memory. and fossil or venti may be left holding the bag.

ndb/dns also has an ever-growing footprint.

> i can't even compile some ports of gnu things ☺.

glad to hear that there is a silver lining.

> about the unstability, i should disable swap partition to see if that fix something ☺

i find important to comb the kernel panic messages.
running out of kernel memory is fatal.  however,
it could be that you are using very little and can
decrease kernelpercent.

- erik

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

>  Also, public 9grids. Though judging by gdiaz's experiences with
> sirviente, there's a bit of work to be done in that area - I get the
> impression things are fairly unstable once the machine gets under
> memory pressure.
> -sqweek

i think this is an artifact of setting up heavily-used systems
combining venti, fossil, auth and cpu server.

i think you may be blaming
plan 9 when in fact there's just not enough hardware
to go around.

sure crashing is antisocial.  the alternative is to add very
large amounts of code to the kernel.  but even linux doesn't
solve this problem.  my 256mb linux machine with only me
on it, locks solid due to oom conditions more often than the
entire coraid plan 9 system with 20 users.

- erik

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[sqweek]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:35 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>>  Also, public 9grids. Though judging by gdiaz's experiences with
>> sirviente, there's a bit of work to be done in that area - I get the
>> impression things are fairly unstable once the machine gets under
>> memory pressure.
>> -sqweek
>
> i think this is an artifact of setting up heavily-used systems
> combining venti, fossil, auth and cpu server.
...
> sure crashing is antisocial.  the alternative is to add very
> large amounts of code to the kernel.

 Back when this was first posted I wanted to protest the point that a
large kernel modification is necessary, since I figured you can do a
"good enough" job with just an interface to tell the kernel not to
kill the important server processes.
 Obviously I decided to let it lie, but I just discovered this can be
done without modifying the kernel at all when I happened across an
interesting line in termrc:

/rc/bin/termrc:dontkill
'^(ipconfig|factotum|mntgen|fossil|cs|dns|listen|reboot)$'

 The default cpurc doesn't use dontkill, but I suspect it could be a
big help for all-in-one servers. Figured I'd point it out as it seems
easy to miss.
 ... plus everyone can use a good scare every now and then, and what
better way than to resurrect sad commentry?
-sqweek :D

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Kernel Panic]

sqweek wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:35 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>
>>>  Also, public 9grids. Though judging by gdiaz's experiences with
>>> sirviente, there's a bit of work to be done in that area - I get the
>>> impression things are fairly unstable once the machine gets under
>>> memory pressure.
>>> -sqweek
>>>
>> i think this is an artifact of setting up heavily-used systems
>> combining venti, fossil, auth and cpu server.
>>
> ...
>
>> sure crashing is antisocial.  the alternative is to add very
>> large amounts of code to the kernel.
>>
>
>
Swap doesnt work reliable here. :-(
I have disabled swaping and let the kernel kill the biggest process
skipping any critical server processes and it works well.
got ~100 days uptime and i use this machine for linuxemu
development/testing.

no adding very large amounts of code... maybe fix the swap... or even
remove it alltogether.
>  Back when this was first posted I wanted to protest the point that a
> large kernel modification is necessary, since I figured you can do a
> "good enough" job with just an interface to tell the kernel not to
> kill the important server processes.
>  Obviously I decided to let it lie, but I just discovered this can be
> done without modifying the kernel at all when I happened across an
> interesting line in termrc:
>
> /rc/bin/termrc:dontkill
> '^(ipconfig|factotum|mntgen|fossil|cs|dns|listen|reboot)$'
>
>  The default cpurc doesn't use dontkill, but I suspect it could be a
> big help for all-in-one servers. Figured I'd point it out as it seems
> easy to miss.
>  ... plus everyone can use a good scare every now and then, and what
> better way than to resurrect sad commentry?
> -sqweek :D
>
good to know :-)

cinap

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

> Swap doesnt work reliable here. :-(
> I have disabled swaping and let the kernel kill the biggest process
> skipping any critical server processes and it works well.
> got ~100 days uptime and i use this machine for linuxemu
> development/testing.

i'm curious as to what is taking so much memory.

- erik

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Charles Forsyth]

> no adding very large amounts of code... maybe fix the swap... or even
> remove it alltogether.

assuming it doesn't work now, the paging code used to work, at least
in the sense of survive --i used 8l to link kernels on a 4mbyte 386sx16 --
so i imagine it's just a matter of repairing it, if it indeed is responsible.
unfortunately it's hard to tell because "doesn't work" is a little vague.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[sqweek]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net> wrote:
>> no adding very large amounts of code... maybe fix the swap... or even
>> remove it alltogether.
>
> assuming it doesn't work now, the paging code used to work, at least
> in the sense of survive --i used 8l to link kernels on a 4mbyte 386sx16 --
> so i imagine it's just a matter of repairing it, if it indeed is responsible.
> unfortunately it's hard to tell because "doesn't work" is a little vague.

 I'm still happy to do any testing here. Have a P100 with 24mb ram
that I can reliably bring down with man -p or as I found out
yesterday, cd /sys/man; mk indices. Symptoms of the swap issue were
the drawterm session locking up... can't remember what was on the
console.
-sqweek

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[C H Forsyth]

> the alternative is to add very
> large amounts of code to the kernel.

not really. the alternative is to add some code to the
kernel, and varying amounts of code to quite a few applications.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

> Besides, isn't not being UNIX one of the prominent features of Plan 9?

tautology, no?  to be plan 9 it must be different.  if it were not, it would be unix.

- erik

[9fans] sad commentary

[erik quanstrom]

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

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

> 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

cpu is not persistent, at least not in the way
he wants it.

John

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Tim Wiess]

>> 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
>
> cpu is not persistent, at least not in the way
> he wants it.

Yeah, seems like the poster is more interested in something similar to
what Octopus give you.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[underspecified]

This is actually something I am very interested in as well.
If a persistent version of Acme (-SAC) was available it would
completely obviate my use of screen.
Would something like this be feasible outside of Octopus as well?

--underspecified

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Tim Wiess <tim@nop.cx> wrote:
>>> 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
>>
>> cpu is not persistent, at least not in the way
>> he wants it.
>
> Yeah, seems like the poster is more interested in something similar to
> what Octopus give you.
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

Octopus sessions persist by definition as long as you do not
reboot your central PC. All other machines are used to run viewers, but
the layout is preserved by the (window) file system kept at the PC.

Also, you may use tar to capture (most of) the window system state
and restore it later (eg., upon reboots).

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 7:24 AM, underspecified
<underspecified@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is actually something I am very interested in as well.
> If a persistent version of Acme (-SAC) was available it would
> completely obviate my use of screen.
> Would something like this be feasible outside of Octopus as well?
>
> --underspecified
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Tim Wiess <tim@nop.cx> wrote:
>>>> 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
>>>
>>> cpu is not persistent, at least not in the way
>>> he wants it.
>>
>> Yeah, seems like the poster is more interested in something similar to
>> what Octopus give you.
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[John Waters]

What can we expect an OctoVX32 distribution? ;)

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 9:57 AM, Francisco J Ballesteros <nemo@lsub.org> wrote:
> Octopus sessions persist by definition as long as you do not
> reboot your central PC. All other machines are used to run viewers, but
> the layout is preserved by the (window) file system kept at the PC.
>
> Also, you may use tar to capture (most of) the window system state
> and restore it later (eg., upon reboots).
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 7:24 AM, underspecified
> <underspecified@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This is actually something I am very interested in as well.
>> If a persistent version of Acme (-SAC) was available it would
>> completely obviate my use of screen.
>> Would something like this be feasible outside of Octopus as well?
>>
>> --underspecified
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Tim Wiess <tim@nop.cx> wrote:
>>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>> cpu is not persistent, at least not in the way
>>>> he wants it.
>>>
>>> Yeah, seems like the poster is more interested in something similar to
>>> what Octopus give you.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Fco. J. Ballesteros]

>  What can we expect an OctoVX32 distribution? ;)
>
No need.

The distribution at lsub.org can be used on top of
the platforms where Inferno runs.

I'm using it on MacOSX to access my main Plan 9 system.
I've used it some time ago on Windows to do the same, and I think
some other guy at lsub is using it on Linux.

It's pretty easy to install and use it. I think we learned the
lesson well wrt PlanB installation :)

If anyone has problems regarding
this just drop us a line.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Uriel]

No, slashdot has not slipped (but then, I stopped reading it a few
years ago, and the comments there have always been most depressing).

But the world has pretty much forgotten Plan 9 even exists (and lets
not even mention Inferno). In a story about 9vx in reddit.com (where
supposedly all the cool kids hang out this days) somebody mentioned
'last I got interested in Plan 9 you had to pay a few hundred bucks to
get a copy' (or something to that effect).

So, that is what anti-propaganda brings you, but at least you don't
have to deal with clueless users... oh wait, never mind.

uriel

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 4:21 AM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> 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
>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

People do acknowledge the new free systems. Unfortunately, RMS got
them off it in a microsecond when 3e came out:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html

And I don't believe the Note at the top will change people's minds.

And even if we do manage to make people remember Plan 9, we live in a
world ruled by the standard set up by Windows 95. Even Mac OS X seems
influenced (the three buttons scenario - take a look at that "Ah,
minimalism" if you don't use that system). If people say "Plan 9 is
too hard to use" they will allocate blame to Rob Pike's rio before
reading his tirade on other windowing systems (which you can find at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/88/1-07.ps.gz)
. And I don't think they would be open to using Inferno, where the
windowing system has to be started manually and each and every program
isn't available from that menu. I'm not complaining, though - I like
them both - but I'm warning you.

On Jun 29, 2008, at 10:38 PM, Uriel wrote:

> No, slashdot has not slipped (but then, I stopped reading it a few
> years ago, and the comments there have always been most depressing).
>
> But the world has pretty much forgotten Plan 9 even exists (and lets
> not even mention Inferno). In a story about 9vx in reddit.com (where
> supposedly all the cool kids hang out this days) somebody mentioned
> 'last I got interested in Plan 9 you had to pay a few hundred bucks to
> get a copy' (or something to that effect).
>
> So, that is what anti-propaganda brings you, but at least you don't
> have to deal with clueless users... oh wait, never mind.
>
> uriel
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 4:21 AM, erik quanstrom
> <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[bblochl]

Pietro Gagliardi schrieb:

> People do acknowledge the new free systems. Unfortunately, RMS got
> them off it in a microsecond when 3e came out:
>
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html
>
> And I don't believe the Note at the top will change people's minds.
>
Wikipedia says:
License
The full source code is freely available under Lucent Public License
1.02, and considered to be open source by the OSI and free software by
the FSF (although incompatible with the GNU General Public License). It
passes the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

 From another mail: "But the world has pretty much forgotten Plan 9 even
exists (and lets not even mention Inferno)."...............

I do think, that its not the license, the main problem of plan 9 is the
lack of a tutorial for beginners and examples for some applications and
at best with some exercises to practice. Well, there is a bulky manual.
The collection of papers "Plan 9 — The Documents (Volume 2)" is more
readable. But learning from manuals compares to learning a language from
a dictionary. There is a need for some more "readable". For example the
role of make as an equivalent for cc is not self-evident for a
traditional normal OS-user. It is a regret that alef has gone and limbo
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.

bblochl

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

RMS has the power to turn people away from "bad" technology. Remember  
that now.

On Jun 30, 2008, at 9:46 AM, bblochl wrote:

> Pietro Gagliardi schrieb:
>
>> People do acknowledge the new free systems. Unfortunately, RMS got  
>> them off it in a microsecond when 3e came out:
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html
>>
>> And I don't believe the Note at the top will change people's minds.
>>
> Wikipedia says:
> License
> The full source code is freely available under Lucent Public License  
> 1.02, and considered to be open source by the OSI and free software  
> by the FSF (although incompatible with the GNU General Public  
> License). It passes the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
>
> From another mail: "But the world has pretty much forgotten Plan 9  
> even exists (and lets not even mention Inferno)."...............
>
> I do think, that its not the license, the main problem of plan 9 is  
> the lack of a tutorial for beginners and examples for some  
> applications and at best with some exercises to practice. Well,  
> there is a bulky manual. The collection of papers "Plan 9 — The  
> Documents (Volume 2)" is more readable. But learning from manuals  
> compares to learning a language from a dictionary. There is a need  
> for some more "readable". For example the role of make as an  
> equivalent for cc is not self-evident for a traditional normal OS- 
> user. It is a regret that alef has gone and limbo 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.
>
> bblochl
>

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[bblochl]

Pietro Gagliardi schrieb:
> If people say "Plan 9 is too hard to use" they will allocate blame to
> Rob Pike's rio before reading his tirade on other windowing systems
> (which you can find at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/88/1-07.ps.gz).
With this link ione only gets the starting page of the paper. Is there
any other source for the complete Paper (without cost)?

bblochl

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

> Pietro Gagliardi schrieb:
>> If people say "Plan 9 is too hard to use" they will allocate blame to
>> Rob Pike's rio before reading his tirade on other windowing systems
>> (which you can find at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/88/1-07.ps.gz).
> With this link ione only gets the starting page of the paper. Is there
> any other source for the complete Paper (without cost)?
>
> bblochl

I'm not sure what you're looking at, but when I downloaded and
uncompressed that paper I got the whole thing.

John

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[bblochl]

john@csplan9.rit.edu schrieb:
>> Pietro Gagliardi schrieb:
>>
>>> If people say "Plan 9 is too hard to use" they will allocate blame to
>>> Rob Pike's rio before reading his tirade on other windowing systems
>>> (which you can find at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/88/1-07.ps.gz).
>>>
>> With this link ione only gets the starting page of the paper. Is there
>> any other source for the complete Paper (without cost)?
>>
>> bblochl
>>
>
> I'm not sure what you're looking at, but when I downloaded and
> uncompressed that paper I got the whole thing.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
1. Where are the examples?
2. Have you ever worked with srtudents?

bblochl

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[john]

> john@csplan9.rit.edu schrieb:
>>> Pietro Gagliardi schrieb:
>>>
>>>> If people say "Plan 9 is too hard to use" they will allocate blame to
>>>> Rob Pike's rio before reading his tirade on other windowing systems
>>>> (which you can find at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/88/1-07.ps.gz).
>>>>
>>> With this link ione only gets the starting page of the paper. Is there
>>> any other source for the complete Paper (without cost)?
>>>
>>> bblochl
>>>
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're looking at, but when I downloaded and
>> uncompressed that paper I got the whole thing.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 1. Where are the examples?
> 2. Have you ever worked with srtudents?
>
> bblochl

Are we talking about the same thing?  Pietro's link is for an old
paper by Rob Pike talking about the mux windowing system.  There
aren't really any examples.

And I *am* a student, trying to get other students interested in Plan
9.  I wrote http://csplan9.rit.edu/users/john/RITintro.ps for
prospective users of the RIT Plan 9 system, you can look at that if
you want.


John

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Jun 30, 2008, at 10:07 AM, john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote:

> Are we talking about the same thing?  Pietro's link is for an old
> paper by Rob Pike talking about the mux windowing system.  There
> aren't really any examples.

Much of the paper still applies to rio. From mux to rio few changes
were made. Possibly the two biggest changes were resizing/moving from
the borders and hold mode.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Jun 30, 2008, at 9:48 AM, bblochl wrote:

> Pietro Gagliardi schrieb:
>> If people say "Plan 9 is too hard to use" they will allocate blame
>> to Rob Pike's rio before reading his tirade on other windowing
>> systems (which you can find at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/doc/88/1-07.ps.gz)
>> .
> With this link ione only gets the starting page of the paper. Is
> there any other source for the complete Paper (without cost)?
>
> bblochl
>

Get a different PostScript viewer. It works for me.

Re: [9fans] sad commentary

[ron minnich]

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 7:21 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> this slashdot article almost asks for cpu
> functionality for plan 9 by name.
>

actually, this the scenario for which we designed xcpu, almost exactly.

Mount, start up, disconnect, come back later ... I've used it this way.

ron