Re: [9front] bio io functions

[Stanley Lieber <sl@stanleylieber.com>]

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On May 5, 2017, at 6:33 AM, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Just stating what I've learnt.
> 
> brucee
> 
>> On 5 May 2017 at 20:32, Stanley Lieber <sl@stanleylieber.com> wrote:
>>> On May 5, 2017, at 6:29 AM, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Go programs run fine on plan9. There are many benefits in replacing plan9 programs with a Go equivalent, e.g. the widespread deployment of algorithms that use parallelism. What a faster cleaner world it would be.
>>> 
>>> brucee
>>> 
>>>> On 5 May 2017 at 20:21, Stanley Lieber <sl@stanleylieber.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On May 5, 2017, at 5:14 AM, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I don't use primitive methods - like bubblesort. I'm saying Go does it better and elegantly.
>>>>> 
>>>>> brucee
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 5 May 2017 at 19:11, hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 5/4/17, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> > Go provides this functionality using interfaces.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> are you saying this solution is unnecessarily primitive because it
>>>>>> doesn't use the high level abstraction if interfacing?
>>>> 
>>>> Plan 9 has not yet been re-implemented in Go.
>>>> 
>>>> sl
>> 
>> Okay, but is this a pull request or are you just volunteering our Germans for your space program?
>> 
>> sl

Not trying to be a dick, just observing that a C library function used throughout the system might not be the first place to start sneaking in Go. The implication would obviously be rewriting all the programs that rely upon it in this other language, and that would be a big job. "Just use Go" in this context is either unrealistic advice or a non sequitur.

Other nits: Go is not really a first class citizen on Plan 9. It cannot even be bootstrapped on 9front/386 or 9front/arm. There are unfixed bugs that complicate networking and process reclamation. For these and other reasons, the Germans already declared 9front would never ship Go. Circling back to the original suggestion, this precludes rewriting the system in Go.

Go offers some advantages over C, but also brings with it a lot of code, mechanism, and culture that attempts to solve problems that are not even present in Plan 9. I run Go programs on production Plan 9 systems every day, but it's not quite so simple as just re-implementing stuff that already works in a completely different language just to... What, exactly?

sl


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