41–50 of 98 posts
Gopher is cool as a slice of history though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relevancy is a measure of subjective scope. Things that are relevant to some might be irrelevant to others. Gopher might not be relevant to society as a whole but to a subset of hackers (hi!). Parent's comment is effortless snark so it deserves any downvote it acquires.
Something relevant to a negligible minority is usually expressed as: not relevant. Relevancy is not totally subjective, as we don't live alone in basements, but in a society. Something relevant for the most of the/a society is relevant. Other stuff is called niche, irrelevant, because it has no effect on the life of the society. Nuclear physics interests a handful of people only, yet it is relevant, as society would…
The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content. The web has effectively killed innovation in operati…
At the time of Facebook, the question should be: Is the web still relevant?
The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content. The web has effectively killed innovation in operati…
The lesson seems to be, rather - don't build an operating system that can't build up enough infrastructure to run a browser. This is maybe less forbidding than, say, being forced to build an operating system that can support an entire Windows subsystem.
I have trouble understanding what it is that people want when they say they want "innovation" in operating systems. It seems like almost anything that was practical to do in the period when I worked with Plan 9 is now eminently practical and far more performant in user space; so why not go build it on top of a minimal Linux kernel and save yourself the trouble of building a gazillion drivers, boot loaders, etc.
The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content. The web has effectively killed innovation in operati…
There is still innovation happening in operating systems, it just doesn't reach mass adoption because most of it doesn't provide real-life benefits to the mass market. Some of the more practical aspects trickle down to mainstream OSes.
We're past the Wild West stage of operating systems. You win some, you lose some.
At the time of Facebook, the question should be: Is the web still relevant?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, while writing a web browser would be significant work, it would likely be on the same order as writing an operating functional enough for people to actually want to use it. Porting a browser would likely take less work even (while still being a significant amount of work). This page talks about what it takes to port webkit to another platform: http://blog.cranksoftware.com/webkit-porting-tips-the-good-t..…
Forgive me, but you should more specifically define the terms you use. As it stands, it looks like by "functional enough for people to actually want to use it" you seem to introduce a circular dependency -- as though an OS is useless unless it's easy to port a browser to it. The GP post mentiones Plan 9, which is a great example here. There are real people who use Plan 9 every day (I have met some of them!) but Webki…
The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content. The web has effectively killed innovation in operati…
Web desktops may be the next step. As much as people are joking about running Javascript on metal, the idea of running a universally accepted virtual machine (WebAssembly?) and building a high level language and operating system on top of it seems to have some merit. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(operating_system) http://urbit.org/docs/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_desktop
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The web is a bad reinvention of distributed RPCs on desktop systems, imo.
You mean web apps? Because the web itself was fine till everyone started thinking that anything on the web must be an application. And that web must "win" mobile for some reason.