From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 2002:a05:660c:2c6:: with SMTP id j6mr6781458itd.9.1551542857958; Sat, 02 Mar 2019 08:07:37 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 2002:aca:ec88:: with SMTP id k130mr7131248oih.155.1551542857823; Sat, 02 Mar 2019 08:07:37 -0800 (PST) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.gegeweb.eu!gegeweb.org!usenet-fr.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!209.85.166.215.MISMATCH!y22no216557ita.0!news-out.google.com!v188ni425itb.0!nntp.google.com!y22no216552ita.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2019 08:07:37 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: #1/1> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=96.255.209.31; posting-account=zwxLlwoAAAChLBU7oraRzNDnqQYkYbpo NNTP-Posting-Host: 96.255.209.31 References: <4s8rud$9j3@tribune> #1/1> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <2a397e8f-efb7-417c-b119-cf7357e5c539@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Why couldn't an operating system be written in ada From: Optikos Injection-Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2019 16:07:37 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:55766 Date: 2019-03-02T08:07:37-08:00 List-Id: On Monday, July 15, 1996 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-4, Jon S Anthony wrote: > In article <4s8rud$9j3@tribune> Mark McKinney writes: >=20 > > liability. Besides the OS could perform most of work that the language= =20 > > runtime does. So why not build an OS in ADA? >=20 > A neat idea whose time is long since gone. The OS "wars" have been fough= t > and largely lost.... :-( As true today in 2019 as it was in 1996, when Linux was just starting to do= minate over the incumbent Unixes for mindshare. If one seeks to write an operating system that mimics the behavior of other= existing OSes but is merely rewritten in Ada as minor implementation nit, = then it is an effort doomed to failure unless you are a billionaire looking= for a fascinating hobby project. The OS wars in recent years has reached a truce of sorts with everyone conv= erging on Linux (for now). What a next-gen OS must do is solve one or more= pernicious problems faced by today's OS+cloud that is ill served by today'= s OS's and orchestration. Don't solve the same problem again (but done rig= ht). Rather solve a new problem that obsoletes Linux and today's haphazard= cloud infrastructure and today's AI and today's self-driving automobile ne= ural nets and today's telecom networking and ubiquitous FPGAs everywhere an= d ubiquitous physics-modeling-processors (i.e., GPUs) everywhere and softwa= re-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) and software-= defined data center and =E2=80=A6 and =E2=80=A6 and. The old Sun Microsystems' advertising tagline is more true today than it wa= s back in the 1990s when their ads plastered it everywhere: =E2=80=9CThe n= etwork is the computer.=E2=80=9D Today, in the microcosm, we have a many-c= ore confederation of cache-coherent NUMA processors & cores therein in an a= ll-hardware-protocol network. Plus in the macrocosm, we have cloud computi= ng based on either VMs (KVM mainly, with a smattering of VMware). A new OS= would focus on doing all of these things differently than today and better= than today in one over-arching well-thought-out vision. We don't need a new OS per se. We need an entirely different OS with an en= tirely different mission. We don't need a new successor to Ada per se (that placates troglodyte synta= x preferences). We need Ada to have a new mission. Randy's Ada2020 intere= st in bringing a Rust-esque borrow checker to Ada is a hint in this directi= on of a drastically new mission for Ada. Once your mind's eye sees the new unified mission clearly (as Francis Corba= t=C3=B3 did for General Electric in Multics during the late 1960s), the gap= s to fill to get us there become far less mysterious and, more importantly,= far less mundane & pedestrian. Then expandedAda has a newMegaOS to go sol= ve well to eclipse the incumbent Linux+orchestration+cobbled-together-self-= driving-automobile+AI+GPUs+ubiquitous-FPGAs hodgepodge that is the current = lackluster state of disarray in computing. The expandedAda as the implemen= tation language of newOS could marshal far more than Linux does today. And= that is what an OS does: =E2=80=A2marshaling complexity=E2=80=A2, whether= it is called scheduling or orchestration or I/O or impeccably-perfect reso= urce lifetime.