Re: linux desktop in trouble

[Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com>]

On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 2:45:40 AM UTC-7, Mehdi Saada wrote:
> https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-desktop-is-in-trouble/
> How easier would it be if they weren't using messed-up tools to begin with, if they had the intelligence to let compilers do more of the work for them ?
> How much less work hours in maintenance and errors correcting ?

It seems to me that a lot of the problems in that article stem from design. Take installation: the article says "but under the surface, there are half-a-dozen different ways to install programs." — The proper solution here is to provide at least a proper interface for install/uninstall, like Ada does for allocaters, or possibly a whole subsystem.


In terms of programming languages, the problems cited in that article are simply the result of the C mentality: prioritizing simplicity over correctness or completeness. — This is opposed to the Ada mentality of doing things foremost correctly which, arguably, could be the theme of several older OSes like the Burroughs MCP, Multics, and perhaps OpenVMS.

In order to really solve these problems, you would have to design the OS (from the ground up) to address these issues; IIRC some of the above-mentioned OSes did so, at least for various subsystems. (OpenVMS, for example, had a very nice networking subsystem [based on the OSI model, IIRC] where client-programs were unaware of the network-connection protocols.)