Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UsesThis: Rob Pike

rob.pike.usesthis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 192 posts

Re: UsesThis: Rob Pike

#71

Post by nicholassmith »

I like his ideal, all the work being accessible no matter what device you've got in front of you but the whole idea only works with ubiquitous network connectivity. I commute a couple of hours most days through areas where the 3G quality is non-existant to poor, occasionally reaching 'Usable', so I'd be doomed to being unproductive. Caching gets you so far, but there's still plenty of rough spots to the idea.

It's definitely a nice idea though, maybe some day it'll happen. Nice to see Rob Pike getting a usesthis.com post, slightly (but not much) surprised to see him using Macs as his primary choice.

Re: UsesThis: Rob Pike

#72

Post by pkorzeniewski »

nnq wrote: post #48

The whole "everything in the cloud", "let someone else worry about storage" view, at least the way he promotes them, are more like VCS than let's say Git (or pick another DVCS)... you have a conceptual "central" point of failure, even if this "point" is a network of servers distributed around the world. I want STORAGE ON EVERY DEVICE (not volatile!), and and automatic system to sync it with all my other devices, WITH…

I agree, for me cloud is just another backup storage, as it surely isn't - and never will be - fully reliable. Sure, it's convenient that you can access your data from any device, anywhere, but the price of not having direct control over your data and relying on internet connection to access it disqualifies cloud as "one and only" storage for me.

Re: UsesThis: Rob Pike

#73

Post by p9idf »

cokernel_hacker wrote: post #68
p9idf wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>[Plan 9 exists] because the status quo is bad and something must be done . That's a strange way to describe research and experimentation (though not strictly incorrect). >I just wished they focused on making the mainstream better Plan 9 predates all of today's mainstream operating systems.

> That's a strange way to describe research and experimentation (though not strictly incorrect). Many of the modern OS research papers that I have read take an existing solution and mess with it. As an example, many file system papers take ext[34] or btrfs and do something to them (if we want to debate this statement, we can). I see this with replacement algorithms, packet schedulers, etc. Much experimentation happen…

Your point is not clear to me.

Re: UsesThis: Rob Pike

#74

Post by jf »

icebraining wrote: post #62
nnq wrote: post #48

The whole "everything in the cloud", "let someone else worry about storage" view, at least the way he promotes them, are more like VCS than let's say Git (or pick another DVCS)... you have a conceptual "central" point of failure, even if this "point" is a network of servers distributed around the world. I want STORAGE ON EVERY DEVICE (not volatile!), and and automatic system to sync it with all my other devices, WITH…

Frankly, I can't understand how can you criticize Pike for that. That's exactly what he wants: When I was on Plan 9, everything was connected and uniform. Now everything isn't connected, just connected to the cloud, which isn't the same thing. By the way, try Joey Hess' git-annex, now with the assistant. It's just that: a sync and merge system for all your files, which can automatically sync up just about anything (c…

git-annex looks _amazing_, thanks for mentioning it!

Re: UsesThis: Rob Pike

#78

Post by cokernel_hacker »

p9idf wrote: post #73
cokernel_hacker wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a strange way to describe research and experimentation (though not strictly incorrect). Many of the modern OS research papers that I have read take an existing solution and mess with it. As an example, many file system papers take ext[34] or btrfs and do something to them (if we want to debate this statement, we can). I see this with replacement algorithms, packet schedulers, etc. Much experimentation happen…

Your point is not clear to me.

The good ideas taken from plan9 aren't isolated to it and could have been fostered outside of it, perhaps speeding up adoption of those ideas.

Re: UsesThis: Rob Pike

#79

Post by bergie »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #61
nnq wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...I know, we geeks have this already as we use dvcs for all sorts of stuff other than code too (like my text editor's settings etc.) ...but most other non IT professionals using computers (doctors, physicists, most non-software engineers etc.) don't do this and are pretty far from using things this way ...they are more likely to be "fished into" cloud solutions that will have them "hanging from the cloud (someone el…

Well, someone just needs to make a file storage-oriented Git client.

There is git-annex, and of course also http://owncloud.org/

Re: UsesThis: Rob Pike

#80

Post by ralph »

babarock wrote: post #38
epaga wrote: post #23

Slight critique here - I feel like he's using this to push an agenda rather than just telling us in detail what tools and software he uses to get his job done. He mentions a few things but in far less detail than anyone else I've read on usesthis. Instead he gives paragraph after paragraph of "world view" about moving things to the cloud...interesting, yes, but not what I'm after when I read usesthis posts... :-/

What? No! He's not pushing for a move to the cloud. He actually did criticize the way we're building the cloud today: > "This is 2012 and we're still stitching together little microcomputers with HTTPS and ssh and calling it revolutionary. I sorely miss the unified system view of the world we had at Bell Labs, and the way things are going that seems unlikely to come back any time soon." To understand what he's talkin…

Plan 9 did leave Bell Labs, http://www.york.ac.uk/ used it for one, and it was released under a more free licence in time.
Post reply on HN