I find TempleOS endlessly fascinating. The author is troubled, but an impressive coder nonetheless. The C compiler REPL covered in this video is actually kinda awesome.
Kinda like a lispm for C
Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
That "novel" idea was common in Xerox PARC machines.
I didn't claim the idea was novel, only that Davis's implementation is novel. The idea of a single address space operating system which can be modified while it's running is older than unix.
I misunderstood it then.
Re: Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The random number generator as God concept has been stuck in my head since I first read that Vice article. In games, both tabletop and computer games, the RNG plays the role of God (a mysterious power that can bring good or bad fortune and even life or death). It's interesting how that idea plays out in a schizophrenic mind.
Heh, i keep seeing roguelike players go "bless RNGsius" or similar when they get a particularly potent item.
I've spent a lot of time playing nethack (possibly the most hours I have spent in any game). That may be why this was such a striking thing to me. I may have internalized some of that logic, even if only in a humorous manner, and so perhaps it resonates with me that someone might genuinely believe that the RNG is a way to communicate with God. There's a charming, if naive, logic to it; after all, if God created everything and is omniscient, why couldn't they have built the universe such that you would ask the right question at the right time to get the right answer from an RNG (which are all deterministic, if you have control over enough of the variables, as God presumably would). It's kinda like a modern version of astrology, I guess, in that interpretation and what questions you ask determine the outcome more than the stars or the RNG.
Re: Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
#54Most of us will never use TempleOS, few will appreciate the skill shown here and fewer will understand Davis' religious goals. But you could also look at TempleOS as a research prototype, roughly the kind of thing which once might have been produced at Xerox PARC, and see that TempleOS implements some startlingly interesting ideas. For example, in this demo, the way that graphics are treated inline with source text a…
I don't think anyone here is trying to tear Davis down. It's just that his writings can reflect poorly on our community as a whole to those who aren't familiar with his circumstances. In the current climate of hit-piece, shoot-first-ask-questions-never outrage journalism, for which the straw man of the out-of-touch privileged techie is a favorite punching bag, you can't be too careful.
At the same time his approach to others, would make him an extremly difficult person to work with. I enjoy looking at some of his work, but I could never actually work with him, which is quite sad.
Re: Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
#55After reading a bit in the reddit comment history, I think I'll just ignore him and his projects from now on: http://www.reddit.com/r/TempleOS_Official/comments/2pfp2j/th... Quote: > God is not PRNG. I wish there weren't so many niggers who think all random number are PRNG. These nigger seriosuly don't know you can get non-PRNG numbers, but true random.
He is mentally ill. I wouldn't want to work directly with him, and I wouldn't want him in any position of authority over anyone else (because he's clearly not a nice person). But, I think he and his OS are interesting as hell, from a number of angles.
You're certainly welcome to dismiss everything anyone who is an asshole ever said or did (I kinda feel that way about Orson Scott Card, despite loving Ender's Game). But, I'm probably gonna keep reading about TempleOS as a fascinating hacker subject.
Re: Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
#56Has Davis ever explained why he believes that his operating system is a holy relic, an artifact particularly close to God? And if so, which part of it is holy - the contents of the filesystem, the state of the runtime, or both?
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/gods-lonely-programmer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8658283
Thank you. I found this quote most illuminating:
But the idea of a digital oracle grew out of his earlier methods for talking to God. At first he’d open a Bible to a random page, and it would speak.
TempleOS is technologically more sophisticated than a randomly opened bible, but no less (or more) holy a source of God's word. It would follow then that if you were not moved by the act of randomly accessing information from a book, then you would not be moved by digitally mediated random access. (The converse is also true.)
Re: Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
#57Is it essentially a C interpreter that runs on the metal? Or is there more to it? What about device drivers?
It's emphatically not an interpreter. It's a just-in-time, line-by-line compiler.
Re: Why Davis' TempleOS is better than Torvald's Linux
#58Title is a bit misleading this seams mainly like a form of shell, comparing it to Torvals linux kernel or unix seams wierd. As a shell however i feel it is a interesting change of perspective.
The shell is what you see, but there's a full OS underneath it, including a window manager and whatnot. You can reprogram any part of the OS dynamically from this shell, which is the main point Terry is trying to make - it's an OS aimed at hackers who he thinks should have 100% control over the system down to the hardware - and he has a novel way of enabling that to happen with an interpreter and JIT compiler for his…
I got that there was an OS underneath but i don't see how that matters. As you could do the same in unix if you had a shell/api that hooked in at the right place.