[NCLUG] Re: Thoughts on Linux Users

[Chad Perrin]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2007 at 04:05:19PM -0700, John L. Bass wrote:
> Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> writes:
> > Thank goodness.  Until this email, you were starting to sound like a
> > broken record.
> 
> Well probably time to agree to disagree. You have your knickers in a knot
> arguing about things I didn't say or assert. You clearly believe that you
> know more about the issues at hand, than the folks like Ken and Dennis
> that believe starting from scratch is the only reasonable solution. And
> disregard that 95% of folks avoid command line interfaces at any cost.

There's little I find as odious as argument from authority, and you do
that a *lot*.  No wonder I have my "knickers" in a knot.

I don't disregard the fact that some specious percentage guesstimate of
users avoid the CLI at "any cost" -- I just don't regard that as a sign
that the CLI is "obsolete" or "evil".


> 
> I clearly didn't say or assert this:
> 
> > . . . and yet, you seem to want to eliminate the underlying text-based
> > command interface, and just have the GUI (possibly with some kind of
> > text-based macro system shoehorned into it, or more likely bolted on,
> > with less pervasive control capability).  I can't help but think that
> > such an opinion of how OS design should advance is incredibly naive, and
> > worthy of someone who hasn't been working with anything but MS Windows
> > and MacOS "classic" for the most part.
> 
> I can say that it's increadibly naive to believe that the industry would be
> enhanced by going back to character interfaces, and forcing users to abandon
> the GUI's.

Who the *hell* said anything about "going back to character interfaces"
and "forcing users to abandon the GUI's[sic]"?  The irony is actually so
strong here it smells.

What you *did* say is this, by the way:

   native GUI support as a general and primary user interface

Thus, you *did* say something that roughly equate to what I said above,
namely that you want to eliminate the CLI as native, primary interface.
Note that I didn't say you'd necessarily want to eliminate *all*
potential CLI functionality, and made a point of saying that you might
possibly condone a secondary text-based interface like a macro system.

. . . or do you have some other definition of "native" and "primary" than
me, where basically nothing changes except that it's an OS you like?


> 
> I clearly didn't say or assert this:
> 
> > If GNOME and KDE are your primary examples of GUI design in the Unix
> > world, I can certainly see how you think that nobody has been doing
> > anything useful with GUI design in the Unix world for the last twenty
> > years.  I'd think so too, if those were my examples.
> 
> You have to understand what's wrong with a design before you can do better,
> as well as understand what works well. You are incredibly naive to belive
> that advancement comes without studing both the good and bad first, or to
> argue that doing so somehow embraces those failed choices.

Where are you getting this stuff?

  1. I never said I believe that "advancement comes without studing[sic]
  both the good and the bad first", or anything that even hinted at such
  a conclusion.

  2. I never argued that "doing so somehow embraces those failed
  choices," either.  You're just making crap up out of thin air here.
  Remember the bit about irony and smell?

  3. Something you *did* say:

    You also need to clearly understand the fundamentals of GUI based
    architectures, which requires solid study of the Plato, Alto, Lisa,
    evolution of the Apple OS's, as well as MSWin and X11/Gnome/KDE.

  I made an assumption, here -- that you were not saying we should
  study X11, GNOME, or KDE for *good* qualities.  You also said:
    
    UI and operating system innovation stopped dead for 30 years ...
    failing to advance the art as hordes of programmers set out to clone
    what should have been a dieing[sic] UNIX/X11 standard, and kept it
    revived for 20 years past it's point of innovation on a desktop.

  So . . . unless my assumption was mistaken, and you were actually
  saying *good* things about X11, GNOME, and KDE, you *did* indeed say
  that nobody has been doing anything useful with GUI design in the Unix
  world for the last twenty years, and you *did* use GNOME and KDE as
  your examples thereof.


> 
> > I find it interesting that you dismiss Linux and FreeBSD development so
> > quickly, in light of your reference to things like HURD, the MIT
> > Exokernel, and so on.  After all, such projects are still in the realm of
> > academia rather than in that of widespread, commodity OS use, largely
> > because of some practical failings that nobody has managed to figure out
> > how to solve yet (performance being a big one).
> 
> performance is exactly the problem with the current Linux architecture, in
> that it greatly exceeds the 4 and 8 way caches, with excessive aliasing and
> faults to memory. That by the way, was ALSO the problem we saw with the
> direction that UNIX was taking 20 years ago. Huge scaling problems. Huge
> problems with minor code changes, or compiler changes, stacking the aliasing
> up unprodictibly resulting in performances differences of 3X or more. That
> was with a CPU clock to Memory cycle time ratio of 18. Today that ratio is
> better than 250. It was masked for a while with Moore's law, which has come
> to and end more or less. Now it's time to start cleaning up the code paths
> and architectural problems which are creating the performance bounds.

So . . . slower systems are the answer to poor performance?  I never
would have guessed.


> 
> > Ultimately, slimming things down to the level of the HURD or Exokernel
> > level might be The One True Way.  The hybrid Mach/BSD kernel of
> > OpenDarwin might be the next stepping stone.
> 
> Clearly expanding on the UNIX SVR5 bloat in the way that current linux
> releases have, is the wrong direction.

Maybe so.  Maybe you've just completely ignored my discussion of the
Linux kernel architecture where the traditional monolithic kernel design
approach has been gentled a bit by kernel modules.  Maybe you've just
completely failed to explain how SVR5 bloat has anything at all to do
with BSD Unix, too.


> 
> > In the meantime, modular
> > monolithic kernel design such as that used in the Linux and FreeBSD
> > kernels seems to be the de facto Right Answer to getting things done
> > while we wait for the technological revolution to overcome its own
> > limitations.
> 
> yeah ... as shining examples of what not to do.

You're long on name-dropping and insults to any and all developers
working on open source OS design that aren't building their OSes around
something like the MIT Exokernel, but pretty short on saying anything
substantive.  You're also long on (apocryphal, at best) accusations of
misrepresentation, but short on accurate representation of what I have
said in return.

I am unimpressed.  You think you can do better?  Show me the code.

Maybe I'd even use it (depending on licensing).

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Patrick J. LoPresti: "Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1)
Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk
quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!"