* Re: Printing Enum
1999-03-05 0:00 Printing Enum Willliam V
@ 1999-03-05 0:00 ` dennison
1999-03-05 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-03-06 0:00 ` OS in Ada Nick Roberts
2 siblings, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: dennison @ 1999-03-05 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <7boa3e$1nc$1@ffx2nh3.news.uu.net>,
"Willliam V" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
> Now is an easier task for an Ada engineering team: build half
> the functionality of Linux on Pentiums. Ten years after Linux
> started to run on 386s. Blah
Considering it took the input of thousands of people around the world and
probably man-hours in the millions, that would be quite a task for a team.
T.E.D.
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* Re: Printing Enum
1999-03-05 0:00 Printing Enum Willliam V
1999-03-05 0:00 ` dennison
@ 1999-03-05 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-03-06 0:00 ` Aidan Skinner
1999-03-06 0:00 ` OS in Ada Nick Roberts
2 siblings, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread
From: robert_dewar @ 1999-03-05 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <7boa3e$1nc$1@ffx2nh3.news.uu.net>,
"Willliam V" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
> Now is an easier task for an Ada engineering team: build
> half the functionality of Linux on Pentiums. Ten years
> after Linux started to run on 386s. Blah
Well the english is a bit odd in the above, so it is a
little hard to understand, and the significance of the
last four letters is equally inpenetrable.
But if you are asking whether it would be practical to
duplicate half (or all for that matter) of the Linux
functionality on Pentiums in Ada, then the answer is:
1) Yes, entirely practical
and
2) Probably a much better choice. Far too many target
dependencies crept into the initial Linux implementation
(e.g. depending on specific choices of the optimizer in
the current version of GCC, and excessive use of ASM
insertions). It is likely that this would have been far
less of a problem if Ada had been used.
Of course this all assumes that you have appropropriate
compilers available (with technical, and non-technical
(e.g. GPL) requirements being met). This is true now, but
was not true ten years ago.
But from a purely technical point of view, this certainly
could be done.
It would be a nice project for some students to undertake
(the Linux kernel is not that large after all).
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* Re: Printing Enum
1999-03-05 0:00 ` robert_dewar
@ 1999-03-06 0:00 ` Aidan Skinner
0 siblings, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: Aidan Skinner @ 1999-03-06 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Fri, 05 Mar 1999 15:17:10 GMT, robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
<robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>It would be a nice project for some students to undertake
>(the Linux kernel is not that large after all).
I was thinking about this the other day. I need to do a project next year, but
decided that this would be a tad pointless as far as contributing to the
community goes.
OTOH, doing it so that it ran on pre-386 processors would be interesting (what
the ELKS project is trying to) would be very helpful, and possibly more
interesting (although also harder since there's no MMU's etc.)
- Aidan
--
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9704075s
"Aaagh! Will hang you over shark pool and laugh with much evil! Chapter
Nine!" - Pitr, Userfriendly.
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* OS in Ada
1999-03-05 0:00 Printing Enum Willliam V
1999-03-05 0:00 ` dennison
1999-03-05 0:00 ` robert_dewar
@ 1999-03-06 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
2 siblings, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: Nick Roberts @ 1999-03-06 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
Amusingly, I am, in fact, planning to do almost what William V suggests
(except with a better OS design :-) except that I'm only going to create: a
kernel; some other bits of low-level software (including an Ada/C++
compiler). Even that's big enough. The rest of the system will be built
from existing software.
The theme of the compiler and OS will be "speed to the max" (and also
well-exposed operation). The core of the kernel will be written in Assembly
(everything else in Ada).
The only problem is: it will probably take me several years to get the
compiler ready, never mind the OS! Nevertheless, I am going to do it,
barring accidents, however long it takes.
Man-hours are well known as being mythical, but if there is anyone really
loony (and I mean REALLY loony) enough, I would happy (ecstatic!) to have
collaborators, even thousands of them!
-------------------------------------
Nick Roberts
-------------------------------------
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