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Amsterdam Compiler Kit

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Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit

#71

Post by justin66 »

jacquesm wrote: post #64
justin66 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> students were forced to work on Minix long after that that made any sense at all Not to defend the textbook grift or the lack of vision here, but I strongly suspect an undergraduate minix course taught at VU would be very good. It’s not obvious to me that it would be inferior to the xv6-based course taught at MIT, for example.

That's fair, but it would be no less effective than a similar course based on Linux which would actually give the graduate a far more practical amount of knowledge. Acquisition of knowledge isn't free and to purposefully use a toy when the real thing is freely available for commercial reasons is just grift and AT and VU were well aware of this. Note that all I'm doing here is taking AT at his word that he developed M…

I believe in the present day, the premise motivating these undergrad books and courses based on alternatives (VU and Minix, MIT and xv6, Purdue and Xinu, God knows what else) is that Linux has become too complicated for an introductory course. I honestly don’t have any instinct as to whether this is correct pedagogically. I suspect the two main factors are how well the software facilitates getting students situated and in a position to do meaningful programming assignments quickly, and how motivated the students are to work on the software.

I reminder taking a security-oriented class ages ago and hacking on an operating system that was already dead as a trilobite, and we were all smart enough to realize this was not a triumph we’d be bragging about to our future children (or recruiters). Bleh.

Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit

#72

Post by jacquesm »

phicoh wrote: post #68
jacquesm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ones that wanted to work on Linux could just do that. Sure, but time is a very finite quantity and wasting a couple of years on Tanenbaum's pet project may have resulted in some residual knowledge about how operating systems in general worked but looking at most of the developments they pursued the bulk were such dead-ends that even outside of VU there was relatively little adoption. The world had moved to Linu…

I wonder who you are thinking of who 'wasted a couple of years'. Regular students do one course in operating systems. That is a series of lectures and some practical work. The practical work is a couple of weeks at most if you know what you are doing. Some people spent a lot more time on MINIX, but that was either as a hobby or the PhD students who worked on MINIX3. But MINIX3 generated lots of papers with a best pap…

I have some friends that went that route. They did not come away with anything that helped their careers later on and the 'academic point of view' in CS in NL hasn't been the best way to put food on your table since the days of Dijkstra.

Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit

#73

Post by jacquesm »

justin66 wrote: post #71
jacquesm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but it would be no less effective than a similar course based on Linux which would actually give the graduate a far more practical amount of knowledge. Acquisition of knowledge isn't free and to purposefully use a toy when the real thing is freely available for commercial reasons is just grift and AT and VU were well aware of this. Note that all I'm doing here is taking AT at his word that he developed M…

I believe in the present day, the premise motivating these undergrad books and courses based on alternatives (VU and Minix, MIT and xv6, Purdue and Xinu, God knows what else) is that Linux has become too complicated for an introductory course. I honestly don’t have any instinct as to whether this is correct pedagogically. I suspect the two main factors are how well the software facilitates getting students situated a…

> Linux has become too complicated for an introductory course.

So that already suggests a fantastic way to make some progress.

I think Tanenbaum had a unique vision at the time, but he went about it in the most ham handed manner possible and if not for VU Minix wouldn't even be remembered today. Linus had a huge advantage: he didn't have a lifestyle to support just yet.

Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit

#74

Post by throwaway81523 »

yellowapple wrote: post #41
throwaway81523 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course RMS understood the overtone perfectly, but Vrije Universiteit (vu.nl) is the real name of the university. Its name can be translated to "liberated university". As I understand it, it's a free university in the sense that historically, students of all religions were eligible to attend, as opposed to e.g. Katholieke Universiteit which was Catholic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrije_Universiteit_Amsterdam

Sounds like Katholieke Universiteit ought to release their own Compiler Kit ;)

Catholic University Compiler Kit? It would have to use one of the eponymous licenses if it didn't want to cause a paradox, heh.

https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/why-i-use-the-gpl-and-not-cuc...

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