From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 6971 invoked from network); 13 Dec 2020 01:57:15 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 13 Dec 2020 01:57:15 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 0852894501; Sun, 13 Dec 2020 11:57:12 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4565A93D38; Sun, 13 Dec 2020 11:56:49 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 27E8B93D37; Sun, 13 Dec 2020 11:56:46 +1000 (AEST) Received: from fourwinds.com (fourwinds.com [63.64.179.162]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0C93393D29 for ; Sun, 13 Dec 2020 11:56:43 +1000 (AEST) Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id 0BD1ug1A2698513 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT) for ; Sat, 12 Dec 2020 17:56:42 -0800 Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (jon@localhost) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) with ESMTP id 0BD1ufbY2698480 for ; Sat, 12 Dec 2020 17:56:42 -0800 Message-Id: <202012130156.0BD1ufbY2698480@darkstar.fourwinds.com> From: Jon Steinhart To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society In-reply-to: <20201213010743.GE575698@mit.edu> References: <20201209165854.GK52960@mit.edu> <20201213010743.GE575698@mit.edu> Comments: In-reply-to "Theodore Y. Ts'o" message dated "Sat, 12 Dec 2020 20:07:43 -0500." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <2698476.1607824601.1@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2020 17:56:41 -0800 X-JON-SPAM: local delivery Subject: Re: [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other? X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Theodore Y. Ts'o writes: > > Linux is undeniably useful and it's arguably the most popular operating > > system in the world. And parts of it are really, really good. But simply > > put, that doesn't mean that its evolutionary path has landed in an > > inherently good place. > > The question is what your objective function such that you consider > the endpoint evolutionary path is "a good place"? My pre-existing > values are that a system is "good" if it can add value for many > different applications. > > So I have a bit of an engineer's perspective of a system is good > because it is useful --- and part of being useful is that it is > secure, and reliable, and cost effective. Having a clean architecture > is useful in so far as it makes reduces maintenance overhead and > improves reliability. But forcing everything to use a file interface > merely for aethestics' sake is not terribly important for _my_ > objective function. > > And if popularity means that I can have engineers from Tencent, and > Huawei, and IBM, and SuSE, and Oracle, and Google all helping me make > a better file system for Linux, as opposed to having one company > shoulder all of the development costs --- then heck yes, I'll take > popularity any day. My two cents here is that the problem with the evolution of linux is that many, many people are adding new stuff while the existing stuff is decaying. Sure, the kernel is pretty stable, but user land is a mess where one has a choice of many versions of everything, each of which is broken in a different way. My engineer's perspective is that the overcomplexity from lack of architecture is resulting in reliability and maintenance issues. And, if you can actually make a better file system, please go for it, you're a better person than me. I've looked that that code, and it's huge, has no clearly defined entry and exit points, and is undocumented. While I've been too busy to deal with stuff, I found some minor bugs and a possible big performance improvement just from trying to read the code. I don't think that "it mostly works most of the time" is a great metric. Jon