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* [TUHS] 4.1c bsd ptrace man entry ("ptrace is unique and arcane")
@ 2019-06-25 19:33 Norman Wilson
  2019-06-25 19:42 ` Bakul Shah
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 13+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2019-06-25 19:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

It's interesting that this comment about ptrace was written
as early as 1980.

Ron Minnich's reference to Plan 9 /proc misses the mark, though.
By the time Plan 9 was written, System V already had /proc; see

https://www.usenix.org/sites/default/files/usenix_winter91_faulkner.pdf

And as the authors say, the idea actually dates back to Tom Killian's
/proc in Research UNIX.  I don't know when Tom's code first went
live, but I first heard about it by seeing it in action on my first
visit to Bell Labs in early 1984, and it was described in public in
a talk at the Summer 1984 USENIX conference in Salt Lake City.
I cannot quickly find an online copy of the corresponding paper;
pointers appreciated.  (Is there at least an online index of BTL
CSTRs?  The big search engine run by the place that still has
some 1127 old-timers can't find that either.)

As for ptrace itself, I heartily agree that /proc made it obsolete.
So did everyone else in 1127 when I was there, but nobody wanted
to update adb and sdb, which were big messes inside.  So I did,
attempting a substantial internal makeover of adb to ease making
versions for different systems and even cross-versions, but just
a quick hack for sdb.

Once I'd done that and shipped the new adb and sdb binaries to
all our machines, I removed the ptrace call from the kernel.
It happened that in the Eighth (or was it Ninth by then? I'd
have to dig out notes to find out) Edition manual, ptrace(2)
was on two facing pages.  To celebrate, I glued said pages
together in the UNIX Room's copy of the manual.

Would it were so easy to take out the trash today.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] 4.1c bsd ptrace man entry ("ptrace is unique and arcane")
@ 2019-06-25  2:27 Kirk McKusick
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread
From: Kirk McKusick @ 2019-06-25  2:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ron minnich; +Cc: TUHS main list

> From: ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>
> To: TUHS main list <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
> Subject: [TUHS] 4.1c bsd ptrace man entry ("ptrace is unique and
>         arcane")
> Message-ID:
>         <CAP6exYJshbA5HxOJ_iM21Cs0Y4vGfLuFigXxh4WTeqbZreY8UA@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> I always wondered who wrote this, anyone know? I have my suspicions but ...
> 
> ".SH BUGS
> .I Ptrace
> is unique and arcane; it should be replaced with a special file which
> can be opened and read and written.  The control functions could then
> be implemented with
> .IR ioctl (2)
> calls on this file.  This would be simpler to understand and have much
> higher performance."
> 
> it's interesting in the light of the later plan 9 proc interface.
> 
> ron

The manual pages were not yet under SCCS, so the best time gap that I
can give you is that the above text was added between the release of
3BSD (Nov 1979) and 4.0BSD (Nov 1980). Most likely it was Bill Joy
that made that change.

	Kirk McKusick

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] 4.1c bsd ptrace man entry ("ptrace is unique and arcane")
@ 2019-06-25  1:08 ron minnich
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2019-06-25  1:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: TUHS main list

I always wondered who wrote this, anyone know? I have my suspicions but ...

".SH BUGS
.I Ptrace
is unique and arcane; it should be replaced with a special file which
can be opened and read and written.  The control functions could then
be implemented with
.IR ioctl (2)
calls on this file.  This would be simpler to understand and have much
higher performance."

it's interesting in the light of the later plan 9 proc interface.

ron

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2019-06-26 15:42 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 13+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2019-06-25 19:33 [TUHS] 4.1c bsd ptrace man entry ("ptrace is unique and arcane") Norman Wilson
2019-06-25 19:42 ` Bakul Shah
2019-06-25 20:35 ` Clem Cole
2019-06-25 23:52 ` ron minnich
2019-06-26  0:37   ` Rob Pike
2019-06-26  0:46     ` Larry McVoy
2019-06-26  0:56       ` Rob Pike
2019-06-26  1:03       ` ron minnich
2019-06-26  1:12         ` George Michaelson
2019-06-26  1:32           ` Noel Hunt
2019-06-26 15:41         ` Theodore Ts'o
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2019-06-25  2:27 Kirk McKusick
2019-06-25  1:08 ron minnich

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