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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Python isn't simple.
Perl is less simple. Though, I suppose lua would be a better comparison.
Perhaps vast differences in ergonomics and language-culture-fit but that's orthogonal/unrelated?
> The Plan 9 implementations tend to not be as feature rich as the proper upstream variants. This is IMO the biggest drawback. Why wouldn't any user want the software to be feature rich? In fact, looking at Plan 9, I often feel that the provided software is just a MVP.
Counterpoint: Plan 9 is supposed to be the ultimate realization of the Unix philosophy. One important aspect of the Unix philosophy is composable software. Instead of large, feature-rich programs where functionality is often siloed off from other programs, users have a toolbox of small, composable programs that “do only one thing and do it well” and that they could connect together using pipes and other inter-process…
> The Plan 9 implementations tend to not be as feature rich as the proper upstream variants. This is IMO the biggest drawback. Why wouldn't any user want the software to be feature rich? In fact, looking at Plan 9, I often feel that the provided software is just a MVP.
For the same reason people prefer languages like Python over Perl. Simplicity improves usability and understandability. It's pleasant to use a minimalist, viable product. 9front is not the only OS I use, but it is one of my daily drivers.
Plan 9’s filesystem is a very simple network filesystem protocol to share files between systems. They are specifically using 9P2000.L.
They considered using Samba and SMB instead but can’t rely on Samba being installed and usable in the Linux guest OS and didn’t want to ship it because Samba is GPL licensed.
They picked Plan 9 because it’s much simpler to implement. Also Microsoft already had Plan 9 server code for some other Linux container project they’d done.
The \\wsl$\ path is handled in the Windows system by the MUP, an existing hook for network-like filesystems. They added a new one for Plan 9.
The $ is in the name so that it can’t be confused with a computer whose hostname is wsl.
The Plan 9 server in Linux communicates with the Windows Plan 9 client via a Unix socket. (Windows supports Unix sockets; who knew?)
Windows can access your Linux files even if no Linux is instance is running. There’s a new Windows service called LXSManagerUser that mediates user identity and permissions.> The Plan 9 implementations tend to not be as feature rich as the proper upstream variants. This is IMO the biggest drawback. Why wouldn't any user want the software to be feature rich? In fact, looking at Plan 9, I often feel that the provided software is just a MVP.
Counterpoint: Plan 9 is supposed to be the ultimate realization of the Unix philosophy. One important aspect of the Unix philosophy is composable software. Instead of large, feature-rich programs where functionality is often siloed off from other programs, users have a toolbox of small, composable programs that “do only one thing and do it well” and that they could connect together using pipes and other inter-process…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the same reason people prefer languages like Python over Perl. Simplicity improves usability and understandability. It's pleasant to use a minimalist, viable product. 9front is not the only OS I use, but it is one of my daily drivers.
Python isn't simple.
For the uninitiated, Plan 9 lives on as the filesystem network interface that allows Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux cross-platform access to your C drive. Via " https://nelsonslog.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/wsl-access-to-li... ": Plan 9’s filesystem is a very simple network filesystem protocol to share files between systems. They are specifically using 9P2000.L. They considered using Samba and SMB instead but…
Only since Windows 10 build 17063 (December 2017 pre-release) [0] [1], which was released as Windows 10 April 2018 Update. So for the first 25+ years of Windows' existence, it didn't.
And although it does implement the basic functionality, it is missing features found on mainstream Unix-like platforms, e.g. file descriptor passing (SCM_RIGHTS)
[0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/af_unix-comes-to-...
> The Plan 9 implementations tend to not be as feature rich as the proper upstream variants. This is IMO the biggest drawback. Why wouldn't any user want the software to be feature rich? In fact, looking at Plan 9, I often feel that the provided software is just a MVP.
Users want feature rich systems. Individual programs are best feature-complete, but focused on a single task and capable of cooperating with others when something out of scope is desired.
From my personal viewpoint: It's not easy to hack on large monoliths, even for senior software engineers. But if every logical piece of the monolith tries to be as small as it meaningfully could, the barriers are drastically lower.
I always have the impression the discussion stops on a gas station the middle of the road, instead of on the destination.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counterpoint: Plan 9 is supposed to be the ultimate realization of the Unix philosophy. One important aspect of the Unix philosophy is composable software. Instead of large, feature-rich programs where functionality is often siloed off from other programs, users have a toolbox of small, composable programs that “do only one thing and do it well” and that they could connect together using pipes and other inter-process…
Agreed. And one could argue that Unix wasn't really popular because of the "philosophy", but because it would get out of the way and let you run big monolithic applications like OracleDB or CAD software or even Emacs and etc. So no popular application using "Plan 9 philosophy" ever emerged.