Re: [9front] Enabling a service

[sl@stanleylieber.com]

> I am delighted that my bragging about playing doom 2 over drawterm
> has become an inside joke but I must kindly petition that this be
> upgraded to my playthrough of cavestory in nearly 1440p that I did
> over drawterm.

what about wipeout


> Laptops are generally outside of the purview of what the labs intended,
> computing has gone in interesting directions. However this is not much of
> hurdle really, people lug around operating systems that would really prefer
> to think of themselves as giant computers running in a dedicated room
> servicing a dozen teletypes. Linux has put a lot of makeup on this pig,
> but you can not change its core design principles. Linux folks make do
> with little hacks here and there to improve the experience, you can likewise
> find whatever fits your fancy for how you'd like to reconcile the world of
> modern computing on to a 9front system. We've gained a fair bit of modern
> conveniences (git), the world is your oyster.

i'm very happy with how far we've come, but things are what they are,
and they're not what they aren't. we inherited a semi-broken plan 9 that
never accounted for use cases that were hardly even invented yet when
the real design work was undertaken. the laptop thing in particular is
always funny to me, because in practice it's very similar to that old
situation where bell labs people had slow connections to their terminals
at home. it's too bad ancient terminals weren't battery powered, or
maybe the plan 9 gods would have already put some thought into this.

i'm a bit removed from the software world in general, but it's always
strange, over the years, as people show up making strange demands
about what 9front should and shouldn't automatically provide, relative
to whatever is happening in other operating systems at the time. i realize
that as time goes by, young people will emerge who literally never knew
any different, but this post- social media phenomenon where people seem
to expect that an open source project's highest goal is always to attract
users is beyond bizarre to me. yes, network effects are powerful, but
indiscriminately attracting attention is not always beneficial. see also: 
predators vs prey.


> In general though sl here is right, before we ship something with the system
> we will want to make sure things make sense. We don't shove things in just because
> they can be or because someone has expectations that are not met.

i value that plan 9 is small, easy to erason about, and that a
reasonably intelligent person can solve a lot of their own problems
just by thinking about them before they start mashing keys.  the proof
here is that someone like me can get quite a lot of real (read: not
strictly computer-related) work done using the system.  hell, i even
publish a book about it that people who are smarter than me use to
get their own work done.

and i don't know what the fuck i'm doing.

sl