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The 4th Year of SerenityOS

serenityos.org

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Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#61

Post by kramerger »

forgotpwd16 wrote: post #52
seti0Cha wrote: post #46

> The original Jakt prototype was written in Rust by myself and JT over a couple of weeks before we made it public. I wrote a post introducing Jakt and the motivations behind it. And JT made a video about the creation of Jakt as well. The Rust-based compiler is now long-gone, and Jakt is fully self-hosted with the Jakt compiler being written in Jakt itself. It's always humbling for me to read updates from SerenityOS…

This is good for Jakt but why another language?

It's all part of Andreas' grand plan for serenity OS.

Ask him about "the plan" next time he goes live :)

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#62

Post by kramerger »

akling wrote: post #54
emptyparadise wrote: post #9

I want to become powerful enough to contribute to SerenityOS.

You are already powerful enough! Some of our most active developers today didn't even know C++ when they started. If you're interested, look for something small that annoys you, and then see if you can't figure out enough of the code to fix it. :^)

Andreas, you are underestimating the complexity of C++ for mere mortals.

Maybe you should take a break from SerenityOS and write a book about the useful/practical subset of the C++ language??

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#63

Post by armchairhacker »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #4

Fantastic progress. My only concern is looking at it... I can't help but worry slightly about feature creep. We went from an OS, to an OS + Web Browser, to an OS + Web Browser + Programming Language. Next year it might add an Office Suite at this rate. Edit: I don't mean this as a bad thing, just that it would be a shame to get so large that everything becomes half-baked and overwhelming to finish.

this is actually mentioned in the article, by one of the quoted people.

It works out because of loose coupling + many contributors. People will work on the web browser and others will work on the main OS, and there aren’t too many conflicts or places where each team has to coordinate.

It also works because making a basic OS or web browser or programming language is not hard, 90% of the work goes into the final 10% of perfection. You can a) make minor improvements to the base OS, or b) create an entirely new program and a burst of seemingly-rapid development; SerenityOS is a passion project, so many people choose b.

Furthermore, many of the people working on the OS are still doing so, and some of the people working on the web browser may not have joined without it. So maybe it’s slowing down progress on the main OS but not by too much, the main OS is still improving.

Honestly I kind of predict people will start to branch off and work on a Serenity office, and Serenity painter and Serenity DAW and Serenity calendar and Serenity game engine. This is basically what KDE has done.

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#64

Post by bornfreddy »

bombcar wrote: post #13
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #4

Fantastic progress. My only concern is looking at it... I can't help but worry slightly about feature creep. We went from an OS, to an OS + Web Browser, to an OS + Web Browser + Programming Language. Next year it might add an Office Suite at this rate. Edit: I don't mean this as a bad thing, just that it would be a shame to get so large that everything becomes half-baked and overwhelming to finish.

An OS without a web browser is hardly an OS anymore; Microsoft won on that regard (credit to Bill for recognizing that). But in general if you have something like this, it's often better to let it go where it wanders, even if it never attains the success of Linux, etc. Forcing a restricted scope often leads to burnout which kills it even faster.

> An OS without a web browser is hardly an OS anymore; Microsoft won on that regard (credit to Bill for recognizing that).

Sorry, but no, just no.

MS (correctly) recognized the threat that browser poses to OS through webaps. They bundled IE with Windows, however their bundling was a simple and effective (and monopolistic) strategy to take away market share from the then-leading browser, Netscape.

Yes, OS needs a browser. No, MS and Bill had nothing to do with that (and they artificially slowed down web the best they could - hello IE6!).

I do agree with the rest, but to credit MS that every OS needs a browser nowadays... Just no.

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#65

Post by breckinloggins »

rvense wrote: post #58
openthc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Above reads "pg did write somewhere"; the links provided are somewhere.

They weren't referring to my dumb joke, but to the claim that there were negative comments. I thought I saw one or two as well, maybe they were deleted.

A couple look like they were, yes.

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#66

Post by low_tech_punk »

This project embodies Donald Knuth's principle of being the author of software, rather than just consumers of other's APIs.

Yes, it takes patience and chutzpah, but I can also imagine how satisfying it is to build something from scratch and see all the pieces coming together into a working OS. And if you put your heart (and time) to it, you can build anything from scratch. A lesson the newer generation of developers still haven't fully grasped.

Congrats, good luck, and carry on!

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#67

Post by edgyquant »

nonbirithm wrote: post #48

I think there is more behind SerenityOS that elevates it above being just another OS project. They've attracted hundreds of contributors and have instilled a unique sense of culture within their community (as an example, going as far to devote an entire GitHub repository to documenting a list of "yak-shaving" yak emojis[1]). I think that kind of social endeavor isn't something a lot of maintainers can accomplish, not…

I think it’s that most people are doomers and/or are defeated by doomerism. Most people think it’s impossible to build an OS or a web browser (and are told this when they ask for help building one.)

In reality engineering is straightforward, you just need someone to show you how to properly write data structures and algorithms and to break problems down.

Andreas showed these kids this, reinvigorating the web based hacker culture I grew up in. Anything is possible and even if a problem ends up being more than you can handle at least you learned a ton along the way.

Now days searching for how to code leads you to a ton of tutorials about gluing modules together. I feel sorry for young people with that thirst who won’t be satisfied thanks to the commoditization of learning to code.

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#68

Post by moreira »

bornfreddy wrote: post #64
bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An OS without a web browser is hardly an OS anymore; Microsoft won on that regard (credit to Bill for recognizing that). But in general if you have something like this, it's often better to let it go where it wanders, even if it never attains the success of Linux, etc. Forcing a restricted scope often leads to burnout which kills it even faster.

> An OS without a web browser is hardly an OS anymore; Microsoft won on that regard (credit to Bill for recognizing that). Sorry, but no, just no. MS (correctly) recognized the threat that browser poses to OS through webaps. They bundled IE with Windows, however their bundling was a simple and effective (and monopolistic) strategy to take away market share from the then-leading browser, Netscape. Yes, OS needs a brow…

It seems like you -are- crediting MS for bundling a browser with an OS.

Their reasons are irrelevant.

OSs didn’t come with browsers. Microsoft bundled IE with Windows. Now every OS comes with a browser.

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#69

Post by ianbutler »

I follow Andreas on twitter and he is a big inspiration for me when I go look at more challenging problems now.

I have an addictive personality, so far cigarettes are the only thing that got me and only for 4 years, but I largely stay away anything else now because I see how it effected members of my family and how easily someone like myself could go the same way.

Because of that I very much appreciate channeling yourself into something as ambitious as an operating system instead. It's actually the same way I've built any of my best work and how I've gotten even this far in my career. The line I say is: programming keeps me sane.

Re: The 4th Year of SerenityOS

#70

Post by bornfreddy »

moreira wrote: post #68
bornfreddy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An OS without a web browser is hardly an OS anymore; Microsoft won on that regard (credit to Bill for recognizing that). Sorry, but no, just no. MS (correctly) recognized the threat that browser poses to OS through webaps. They bundled IE with Windows, however their bundling was a simple and effective (and monopolistic) strategy to take away market share from the then-leading browser, Netscape. Yes, OS needs a brow…

It seems like you -are- crediting MS for bundling a browser with an OS. Their reasons are irrelevant. OSs didn’t come with browsers. Microsoft bundled IE with Windows. Now every OS comes with a browser.

Of course they did, or if they didn't, browser was one of the first things installed. Windows was nothing new in this regard.

What was new was that OS was deeply connected to browser, so that uninstalling it was not an option. But that is not what GP claimed, and that is of course not a rule with newer OSs.

But anyway, let's talk about this great new SerenityOS instead. :) Over and out.

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