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A Modern Programming Operating System

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Re: A Modern Programming Operating System

#21

Post by evincarofautumn »

zokier wrote: post #8
tinco wrote: post #5

You could boot your machine into a LISP or Scheme repl, which in my opinion (as a ruby programmer by trade) are much nicer for kids to learn programming with than Ruby or Python because of the dynamic and interactive nature of lisp.

If you are going to take the LISP route, wouldn't booting into emacs and slime make sense? emacs as a login shell.... I wonder if anyone actually does that :)

I have experimented with it. The worst problem I had was that the terminal emulators were too slow for my taste. But overall, Emacs works surprisingly well for it.

Re: A Modern Programming Operating System

#22

Post by mamcx »

I like the ideas behind http://acko.net/blog/on-termkit/. I too dream of a ipython-like shell, where the input/output is similar to GET/POST with Accept headers (so the pipes know if the source/destination can manage the data).

My idea is mix https://tablib.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ as data exchange, python, ipython?, https://pypi.python.org/pypi/httpie/ (as example of the kind of commands), and termkit ideas on display, interface.

So, each command could do something like:

class ls(cmd):

def accept(self): return 'json, xml, cvs'

def output(self): return 'json, xml, cvs'

def run(self, input): return output

But the problem is that do this is hard, take time, and to be useful, require rewrite a lot of basic unix functionality (however, a compatibility can be archived, as with ipython !command) and perhaps a custom language/interpreter to make it usable.

Re: A Modern Programming Operating System

#24

Post by rednukleus »

zokier wrote: post #10
bhauer wrote: post #7

I only ran into this a couple days ago and have obviously never even conceived of checking it out, but it seems to have been purpose-built to have a modern-day equivalent of the old hackable OSes of the 80s: http://www.sparrowos.com/

SparrowOS has bit sad background: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992749

Poor SparrowOS. His operating system does look pretty cool, and I have a lot of respect for anyone who can write something like that.

Re: A Modern Programming Operating System

#27

Post by eschulte »

tinco wrote: post #5

You could boot your machine into a LISP or Scheme repl, which in my opinion (as a ruby programmer by trade) are much nicer for kids to learn programming with than Ruby or Python because of the dynamic and interactive nature of lisp.

If taking this route, maybe emulating one of the old lisp machines would be a good way to go (since they really were lisp all the way down). It looks like someone has already started this project. http://www.unlambda.com/l-machine/l-machine.html

Re: A Modern Programming Operating System

#29

Post by mixmastamyk »

Silhouette wrote: post #11
klrr wrote: post #6

What's wrong with learning kids Shell scripting? I think most Unix-like OS's are good for learning, behind the complex layers of abstractions lay the simple command line. Excellent for programming without any distraction.

What's wrong with learning kids Shell scripting? Assuming you mean bash-like shells on Unix boxes, quite a few things: 1. Commands have arbitrary, hard-to-remember names. 2. Destructive commands tend not to issue warnings. 3. Mass destructive commands still tend not to issue warnings. 4. Did I mention that destructive commands don't tend to issue warnings? 5. Destructive commands typically can't be undone. A system w…

The most productive time in my educational career was when I built PCs, loaded every OS I could find, and destroyed them. As long as it isn't the same system as your tax records, its great.

Nowdays with VMs, snapshots, and partition editors, learning can be accelerated.

Re: A Modern Programming Operating System

#30

Post by bhauer »

zokier wrote: post #10
bhauer wrote: post #7

I only ran into this a couple days ago and have obviously never even conceived of checking it out, but it seems to have been purpose-built to have a modern-day equivalent of the old hackable OSes of the 80s: http://www.sparrowos.com/

SparrowOS has bit sad background: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992749

Wow, that is simultaneously saddening and remarkable. Thanks for pointing it out.
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