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Date:	Fri, 28 Feb 2003 10:32:41 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	< "scoug-programming@scoug.com" > scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: Re: SCOUG-General: Connectix announcement

Content Type: text/plain

Peter,

"Apologies that I won't be at any SCOUG meetings for a few
more months. I'll be missing some wonderful discussions."

Needless to say we will be missing something as well. To help
compensate matters we will find ways to incorporate the
discussions into the website, this mailing list, and if, Dave
Watson gets on the stick, some regularly scheduled chat
sessions. We have to give some importance to insuring that
participants have the same set of tools available so that they
can replicate the results.

"I never had a need for Win32-OS/2, Odin or WINE because I've
never run any Windows apps. I always found the concept
mentally stimulating, though, and paid a lot of attention
because I've always been interested in operating system
design. ..."

You have to say that in the plural: operating systems' design.
The layered approach requires intimate knowledge of two
operating systems' APIs: the host and the guest. The
microkernel acts as a host supporting multiple guest OSes
running concurrently. If there is an appealing operating
system design, surely one in which the only knowledge
necessary is that of the guest design consumes less time and
energy, two scarce resources of open source in general.

Now the microkernel may have a cyanide bullet located
somewhere in the vicinity of the presentation services, i.e.
providing a compatible GUI support, but the experience of OS/2
on the PPC says that it works. It's not clear why the PPC was
chosen over the Intel in order to maintain application
compatibility, but it is clear as Randell has demonstrated at
least twice that it worked.

My only argument with the microkernel software I've
examined thus far lies with their use of object-oriented
technology. In my opinion O-O represents another example of
the difference between clever and smart and why the result
has lead us to work harder and not smarter. We've taken the
learning curve from a week (PL/I) or at most a month to one
of two or three years. We've put a whole edifice in place
which does no more, does it more expensively, and takes
longer than it did when we didn't have it. We call it
progress. It's right up there with K&R in their espousing of C
to sell deficiencies as features. "We don't need no
exception handling, decimal arithmetic, etc.." The result is
that after 30+ years of effort the followers of C and its
derivatives are still functionally shortchanged.

All too often I appear as a soapbox orator. I just grow weary
of those who would continue to complicate software
development in the name of progress. If we want more
people to join in the effort, we need to make it more
attractive, more of a pleasant challenge than an
overwhelming threat. I'm not sure that we've picked the right
path to start with HPCalc and emx-gcc. If we use our smarts,
they should work as stepping stones in a path we will lay out.
Along the way we will develop a greater appreciation for the
scientific method, KISS, and Occam's Razor.

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