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 4354 invoked from network); 25 Jan 2021 17:25:49 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 25 Jan 2021 17:25:49 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 146599C78E; Tue, 26 Jan 2021 03:25:48 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 724039C6AF; Tue, 26 Jan 2021 03:25:34 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 857BB9C6AF; Tue, 26 Jan 2021 03:25:32 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E9E489C5FD for ; Tue, 26 Jan 2021 03:25:31 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 5D94035E2E1; Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:25:31 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:25:31 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: Dan Cross Message-ID: <20210125172531.GP32503@mcvoy.com> References: <20210124212525.GJ21030@mcvoy.com> <202101242333.10ONXjcI974038@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <202101250021.10P0L3Z2976588@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <6557f782-ecb1-6476-1eda-e23f30f9bbea@bitsavers.org> <20210125160430.GR21030@mcvoy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Subject: Re: [TUHS] tangential unix question: whatever happened to NeWS? 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: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 11:37:25AM -0500, Dan Cross wrote: > On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 11:05 AM Larry McVoy wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 10:55:34AM -0500, Richard Salz wrote: > > > Osterhout's Tk was beyond amazing. > > > > Still is, really. So far as I know, nobody has come up with anything > > better. > > The Inferno operating system that was essentially a commercialization of > plan9, implemented Tk with the Limbo programming language (which in many > ways is perhaps the most direct ancestor of Go). That was neat to play > with. Too bad it didn't have a lot of success. We did something similar, I hated Tcl so much I paid a friend to make a compiler for a very C like language that compiled to Tcl byte codes. It's really what I'd like to see C evolve to: http://little-lang.org > > It had no XDR because it was "reader makes it right" and datatypes > > > were tagged. > > > > That's the first I've heard of that and I really like it. Most of the > > time, you are on a network of machines that are the same, so why have > > a network byte order, reader makes it right will just work. Neat. > > I guess I don't quite understand that. I can get how it works for simple > data types (integers, floating point numbers, perhaps strings) but it seems > like it breaks down pretty quickly for anything with a more complex > representation (structures with multiple members, for instance; how does > one deal with padding, etc?). Yeah, good points and I suppose that is why Sun did network byte order. It's still appealing to have reader make right if you can do it, though with todays out of order CPUs providing a pretty high instructions per cycle maybe it just doesn't matter. There is a paper waiting to be written. --lm