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The fall of datacenter software

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Re: The fall of datacenter software

#3
post #2

And at the end of all - this tailored and optimized to ns path there will be python app ;-)

Well, if you're deploying on an architecture with very specialized machinery, even up to JSON parsing and REST API handling, a scripting language isn't going to lose that much over a compiled one.

Maybe not python, but the future the article talks about is definitely one where "js everywhere" is a compelling approach.

Re: The fall of datacenter software

#4
"Hardware Offload for All" reminds me of Sutherland's Wheel of Reincarnation[0]: just a few complete turns further along from 1960's Channel Programs[1][2].

[0] http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/myer-sutherland...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_I/O#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_I/O#Channel_program_ex...

[2] if a supercomputer is a device that turns compute-bound problems into io-bound, is a mainframe a device that turns io-bound problems into compute-bound?

Re: The fall of datacenter software

#6
post #5

I wonder how many decades more we need to came back to the network of interconnected desktops, Xerox originally called Star Office System...

It's actually quite possible with X2Go, including printing and audio support, but NoMachine's NX libs will probably need some love soon.

I have deployed the thing in a 100mbps LAN for quite a few users connected to beefy servers.

Also, I was running the thing for 20 or so researchers to use a powerful server from their homes.

Re: The fall of datacenter software

#7
post #3
post #2

And at the end of all - this tailored and optimized to ns path there will be python app ;-)

Well, if you're deploying on an architecture with very specialized machinery, even up to JSON parsing and REST API handling, a scripting language isn't going to lose that much over a compiled one. Maybe not python, but the future the article talks about is definitely one where "js everywhere" is a compelling approach.

I agree scripting can be done top-level but it’d be shocking for it to be used for device management. These OS ideas are coming back to topics like microkernels, where you want to give applications part of the OS responsibility and hope they don’t crash you. I’d imagine that the scripting language can offload a lot of functions, but it’d just be glue on top of complicated accelerator mini-kernels, which themselves have native code programming e.g., some JSON state machine.

Re: The fall of datacenter software

#10
post #7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you're deploying on an architecture with very specialized machinery, even up to JSON parsing and REST API handling, a scripting language isn't going to lose that much over a compiled one. Maybe not python, but the future the article talks about is definitely one where "js everywhere" is a compelling approach.

I agree scripting can be done top-level but it’d be shocking for it to be used for device management. These OS ideas are coming back to topics like microkernels, where you want to give applications part of the OS responsibility and hope they don’t crash you. I’d imagine that the scripting language can offload a lot of functions, but it’d just be glue on top of complicated accelerator mini-kernels, which themselves ha…

I'm reminded of this using LuaJIT: https://github.com/snabbco/snabb
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