[OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Chris Humphries]

Systems Software Research is Irrelevant
by Rob Pike of Bell Laboratories

"Systems software research has become a sideline to the excitement in 
the computing industry."


http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/175/

It is an interesting read :)

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Georg Bauhaus]

Chris Humphries <chris@unixfu.net> wrote:
: Systems Software Research is Irrelevant
: by Rob Pike of Bell Laboratories

 [... ]
: It is an interesting read :)

And Plan 9 is an interesting experience. I wish those who
write Windows programs (or bindings) would have had this
experience :)


-- Georg

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Björn Persson]

Rob Pike wrote:

> The Web has dominated how systems present and use information: 
 > the model is forced interaction; the user must go get it. Let's
 > go back to having the data come to the user instead.

Huh? Did he suggest to replace the Web with spam?! Or TV??

-- 
Björn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Chris Humphries]

Bj�rn Persson wrote:
> Rob Pike wrote:
> 
>> The Web has dominated how systems present and use information: 
> 
>  > the model is forced interaction; the user must go get it. Let's
>  > go back to having the data come to the user instead.
> 
> Huh? Did he suggest to replace the Web with spam?! Or TV??
> 

I think the point is that it hasn't even been thought of.
Of course it not being offensive to the user would be a
primary concern. I do not know of any geek that would
advocate spam.

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Marc A. Criley]

"Chris Humphries" <chris@unixfu.net> wrote:
> Systems Software Research is Irrelevant
> by Rob Pike of Bell Laboratories
>
> "Systems software research has become a sideline to the excitement in
> the computing industry."
>
> http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/175/
>
> It is an interesting read :)

Yes, it is.

And it concisely sums up why I find ACM's journal, "Communications of the
ACM" just a complete waste of paper:

"Mostly, though, it's just a lot of measurement, a misinterpretation and
misapplication of the scientific method.

"Too much phenomenology: invention has been replaced by observation. Today
we see papers comparing interrupt latency on Linux vs. Windows. They may be
interesting, they may even be relevant, but they aren't research.

"In a misguided attempt to seem scientific, there's too much measurement:
performance minutiae and bad charts."

I finished up last month's CACM (which means flipping through it trying to
find something, anything of interest) and once again it's chock full of
surveys, survey protocols, and plans for conducting further surveys.

Not to pick on ACM, though, since their other magazine, Queue, is everything
that CACM is not: interesting, relevant, and an enjoyable read.

Marc A. Criley
McKae Technologies
www.mckae.com

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> Chris Humphries <chris@unixfu.net> wrote:
> : Systems Software Research is Irrelevant
> : by Rob Pike of Bell Laboratories
> 
>  [... ]
> : It is an interesting read :)
> 
> And Plan 9 is an interesting experience. I wish those who
> write Windows programs (or bindings) would have had this
> experience :)
> -- Georg

I have Plan 9 on my "to do" list, but one of the things
that puts me off is that likelyhood of no GNAT compiler.

Does anyone know if there has been a plan 9 porting effort
of GNAT? If there was, plan 9's priority on my to do list
would certainly change ;-)
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Marius Amado Alves]

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> I have Plan 9 on my "to do" list, but one of the things
> that puts me off is that likelyhood of no GNAT compiler.

You just described my position :-)

> Does anyone know if there has been a plan 9 porting effort
> of GNAT? If there was, plan 9's priority on my to do list
> would certainly change ;-)

Sometime ago I went as far as putting an entry in the "TODO" page in the 
plan9 wiki. Now that there is two of us maybe the project will hobble 
forward a bit more.

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Jeffrey Carter]

Marc A. Criley wrote:

> I finished up last month's CACM (which means flipping through it
> trying to find something, anything of interest) and once again it's
> chock full of surveys, survey protocols, and plans for conducting
> further surveys.

Right. One of the articles is on how to measure web filtering software. 
It has nothing whatever to do with computing, computer science, or SW 
engineering. I considered writing a letter pointing out the similarity 
of this article to one on how to measure the effectiveness of human 
librarians at keeping certain books out of the hands of minors, but 
what's the point? CACM exists as a peer-reviewed journal for academics 
who would otherwise perish.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Death awaits you all, with nasty, big, pointy teeth!"
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
20

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt> wrote:
: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
:> I have Plan 9 on my "to do" list, but one of the things
:> that puts me off is that likelyhood of no GNAT compiler.
: 
: You just described my position :-)

I think you might be impressed with how you operate the system, even
when not using a compiler at all. It's a different perspective,
it looks and feels different. A valuable source of ideas I think.
(There are some programming languages, including a cleaned up and
extended C, aleph, some functional languages, ...)


-- Georg

Re: [OT] Systems Software Research is Irrelevant

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt> wrote:
> : Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> :> I have Plan 9 on my "to do" list, but one of the things
> :> that puts me off is that likelyhood of no GNAT compiler.
> : 
> : You just described my position :-)
> 
> I think you might be impressed with how you operate the system, even
> when not using a compiler at all. It's a different perspective,
> it looks and feels different. A valuable source of ideas I think.
> (There are some programming languages, including a cleaned up and
> extended C, aleph, some functional languages, ...)

I have already examined the ideas and strengths of the O/S, and
have already been suitably impressed -- but as a person who likes
to write code in Ada, I _still_ need an Ada compiler. aleph et al
can be interesting too, but this is academic
to my needs (ok for idle curiosity).

But an O/S that I won't develop for (for lack of Ada), doesn't
work for me.  But perhaps as Marius Amado Alves has suggested,
perhaps some feeble attempt at compiling GNAT there someday is
just a tiny bit closer ;-)
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg