The operating system: should there be one? (2013) [pdf]

p2t2p wrote: post #5

On one had - yes please, screw OSes, gimme something like Smalltalk environment (in it's Pharo incarnation preferably). On other hand - define OS. Isn't that Smalltalk environment an OS if it runs bare metal?

Yes, there is a very blurry line between operating systems, programming languages, and we can include databases as well. Some operating systems as you point out are PLs. Some PLs are implemented as databases. They’re all just really complex accounting systems by nature. Look at the implementation of a lot of OSes, PLs and DBs they are really just made up of tables keeping track of relationships all the way down.

Re: The operating system: should there be one? (2013) [pdf]

#7

Post by travisjungroth » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

(Only read the abstract). I’m learning Emacs and it’s making me think that we missed on the correct abstraction level of the operating system. There are programs that are OS-like (Emacs, browsers, Electron, anything that takes plug-ins). Maybe operating systems could have been lower level, and we could have developed more/better options on the pseudoOS level on top. This seems somewhat inline with the Smalltalk vision.

Re: The operating system: should there be one? (2013) [pdf]

#8

Post by ducktective » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

So...It Has Come To This...

https://xkcd.com/1022/

Re: The operating system: should there be one? (2013) [pdf]

#9

Post by overgard » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:11 AM UTC

I can't help but think about what happened with graphics APIs - the older ones (DX9, OpenGL) held your hand more, and the new ones are super bare metal and not written for the faint of heart. I think most would agree this is better though; for an application developer you can simply use a much higher level library built on top, and for the library/engine developer you have a lot more power and control. The old APIs were in an awkward middle ground of not being particularly easy to use, but also not being nearly low level enough. Nobody was happy.

I think modern OS stacks are in a similar boat, at least Windows and macOS. True low level control is kind of a pain, but the OS libraries are not particularly pleasant or high level enough either. So largely things like Electron or Qt are acting as the defacto OS anyway to varying degrees of success but undeniable levels of resource waste. I wonder if modern languages and tooling and such are advanced enough that the OS should become more primitive and minimal. In a way it feels like we're moving there anyway with web tech becoming the defacto user space and toolkit. That's fine, but god if it wasnt all built on 50 layer of cruft our machines would be screaming fast.

Smalltalk, if you get a chance to use it, really does act like its own OS in so many ways. It's great as a programmers OS really, although it doesn't really hit the right notes for average use. Still though, if someone had the urge to build it I could easily see a smalltalk based userland built on like a linux kernel (with no gnu user space) being a totally viable thing.

Re: The operating system: should there be one? (2013) [pdf]

#10

Post by tehsauce » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:15 AM UTC

overgard wrote: post #9

I can't help but think about what happened with graphics APIs - the older ones (DX9, OpenGL) held your hand more, and the new ones are super bare metal and not written for the faint of heart. I think most would agree this is better though; for an application developer you can simply use a much higher level library built on top, and for the library/engine developer you have a lot more power and control. The old APIs w…

very interesting take, thanks for sharing