Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
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Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
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Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#2> Its primary goal is to provide environment for programs thatsurvive OS reboot. Such an environment greatly simplifies software development
Simplifies? I can't even imagine such a program. To me a program is something that starts and ends and can also re-start with a fresh state in case something goes wrong.
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#3I guess turning off and on again won't fix it with this operating system.
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#4> Its primary goal is to provide environment for programs thatsurvive OS reboot. Such an environment greatly simplifies software development Simplifies? I can't even imagine such a program. To me a program is something that starts and ends and can also re-start with a fresh state in case something goes wrong.
What’s the iOS programming model in this regard?
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#5> Its primary goal is to provide environment for programs thatsurvive OS reboot. Such an environment greatly simplifies software development Simplifies? I can't even imagine such a program. To me a program is something that starts and ends and can also re-start with a fresh state in case something goes wrong.
What’s the iOS programming model in this regard?
Something like “crash-only software”; programs are expected to be killed and relaunched. Software should cope with it, as there is no swap space and ideally the user shouldn’t be managing memory. An app may create to some degree the appearance of persistence but it’s not persistence. Users, also, can easily force kill apps. Ongoing background operations like downloads, uploads and some media playback is delegated to the operating system. Such operations continue when your process is killed, and you check up on them when your process starts. I hope it’s not TMI, but the standard library includes atomic file saves.
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the iOS programming model in this regard?
Something like “crash-only software”; programs are expected to be killed and relaunched. Software should cope with it, as there is no swap space and ideally the user shouldn’t be managing memory. An app may create to some degree the appearance of persistence but it’s not persistence. Users, also, can easily force kill apps. Ongoing background operations like downloads, uploads and some media playback is delegated to…
Thank you!
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#7> Its primary goal is to provide environment for programs thatsurvive OS reboot. Such an environment greatly simplifies software development Simplifies? I can't even imagine such a program. To me a program is something that starts and ends and can also re-start with a fresh state in case something goes wrong.
What about some middle ground? I’d like my IDE to remain constant between reboots, my browser to some degree is already (if it crashes, it reopens all current tabs on start, which is effectively the same).
I would have thought some clever hacks on an existing kernel would be reliable enough rather than an entirely new OS just for one feature, though.
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#8This kind of system will suffer from the ratchet problem. A single bug that negatively impacts state is no longer fixable by rebooting. Instead, you have to format/reinstall. Unintended state becomes permanent, and upgrade paths constrained to the point where you must do intentional damage. I'd also be leery of fragmentation.
The project is falling into the "simplification trap", where all it's doing is moving inherent complexity around (which eventually requires users to do a bunch of work-arounds) rather than eliminating it (because inherent complexity can't be eliminated; only needless complications can be eliminated).
In theory, this sort of setup would be nice in a perfect world, but in the real world of buggy software and faulty hardware and cosmic rays and failing network connections, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#9This kind of system will suffer from the ratchet problem. A single bug that negatively impacts state is no longer fixable by rebooting. Instead, you have to format/reinstall. Unintended state becomes permanent, and upgrade paths constrained to the point where you must do intentional damage. I'd also be leery of fragmentation. The project is falling into the "simplification trap", where all it's doing is moving inhere…
Couldn't there be a middle ground that allows you to restart/reset a single application?
Re: Phantom OS: Persistent Operating System
#10This kind of system will suffer from the ratchet problem. A single bug that negatively impacts state is no longer fixable by rebooting. Instead, you have to format/reinstall. Unintended state becomes permanent, and upgrade paths constrained to the point where you must do intentional damage. I'd also be leery of fragmentation. The project is falling into the "simplification trap", where all it's doing is moving inhere…
Snapshotting is another solution.