From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 X-Received: by 2002:ac8:4e19:: with SMTP id c25mr8848304qtw.283.1601216725004; Sun, 27 Sep 2020 07:25:25 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:aed:2f61:: with SMTP id l88mr8548369qtd.262.1601216724827; Sun, 27 Sep 2020 07:25:24 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!aioe.org!peer01.ams4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer03.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2020 07:25:24 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=146.5.2.231; posting-account=lJ3JNwoAAAAQfH3VV9vttJLkThaxtTfC NNTP-Posting-Host: 146.5.2.231 References: <00cd3aaa-d518-43a2-b321-58d6fae70aebo@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <57eb7a65-51ea-4624-b9dc-9c4dda0fee59n@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: is there a version of unix written in Ada From: Shark8 Injection-Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2020 14:25:25 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Received-Bytes: 4381 X-Received-Body-CRC: 3939840177 Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:60295 List-Id: On Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 11:39:11 AM UTC-6, olivier wrote: > > Thanks everyone, it is more than clear Ada can do an OS, from the=20 > > realtime OS links. > There has been some interesting development lately:=20 >=20 > - https://blog.adacore.com/cubit-a-general-purpose-operating-system-in-sp= ark-ada=20 > - https://github.com/RavSS/HAVK=20 > - https://github.com/ajxs/cxos=20 > - https://archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/ada_spunky/=20 >=20 > Also, you can find a 'probably' complete list here: https://github.com/oh= enley/awesome-ada#OS-and-Kernels=20 >=20 > Personally, I think:=20 >=20 > a) efforts should be organized around a single project,=20 I have a lot of ideas about an operating system, as I've been toying with t= he idea for two decades, even starting to do an OS in Borland Pascal 7, whi= ch made things really nice as the executable was runnable both as a DOS pro= gram and booting to the bare-metal. That said, POSIX is a terrible idea, it= mandates many things that [IMO] severely constrain the architecture, to in= clude directory layout IIRC, and making another *nix is something that hold= s zero appeal to me; instead, I would advise having a very solid foundation= al framework and some "native" constructs that you're not going to find els= ewhere. > b) we should find some financing for such a project and=20 That's a tall order. > c) a lightweight, but formal design procedure should be put in place.=20 True. > Else, we will live with non-lasting attempts and a C base linux, forever = unstable with new holes every 3 months, and some Rust that will inevitably = makes its way in.=20 And there you start hitting on one big issue: C is so ingrained in *nix tha= t "making a Unix in Ada" is begging to fail. There are many Unix-ims that a= re simply bad design, like the ad-hoc text-processing imposed by the design= of piping programs together. (Yes, it does result in security flaws.) =E2= =80=94 Instead we ought to work "inside out" compared to the Unix mindset: = create the foundational types and environment, complete with round-trip tex= t-serialization, and then use that serialization in the command-line... rat= her than forcing new programs to conform to ad-hoc outputs we can have a sy= stem that offers a standard (and type-aware) set of streams for input and o= utput. It might be wise to break out the Orange Book, too: https://csrc.nist.gov/c= src/media/publications/conference-paper/1998/10/08/proceedings-of-the-21st-= nissc-1998/documents/early-cs-papers/dod85.pdf > I do not have the pocket to finance such a project but I could definitely= project myself as thriving to organize and bridge different developers.=20 I could do some design write-ups, but they definitely aren't Unix-y. > If by any chance you know of a billionaire that has better ideas than try= ing to go to Mars and/or build a bigger yacht than its neighbor... give him= my contact. Thx. Yep, there's always the financial aspect.