[TUHS] Unix stories

Nick Downing downing.nick at gmail.com
Mon Jan 2 12:42:31 AEST 2017


This is something I think about a lot. And I can't really say how
adding an option to gcc (for example) should be tested. In fact I'm a
bit lazy when it comes to adding test cases even though I recognize
their validity. Programming by test case is a good idea, but one
problem is the setup cost, for a new project I tend to just write a
two-line Makefile and start coding, and I really want to keep doing
this. Once I start adding a testcase infrastructure then the Makefile
is a lot bigger (make tests and so forth) and relies on external tools
etc. Simplicity really can be better, I mean once you start using
tools like cmake/smake, ant, or (THE HORRORS) maven, it's a time
waste.

But what I really want to say here, is a lot of the bloat arises
because different ecosystems have different ways of doing things. For
instance the object model. Well C++ has an object model. And C has an
object model (based on void * pointers, lots of libraries export this
kind of object model including FILE * in stdio). And gnome has an
object model. And OpenOffice/StarOffice defines its own object model
which is similar to Microsoft's COM. And so on and so forth. So, much
as I like the democracy of an open ecosystem where everyone can define
a competing way of doing the same thing and de facto standards
develop... my own plan is a little bit different.

What I want to do is go back to a REALLY SIMPLE unbloated system,
which is why I am very interested in 2.11BSD (you probably saw my
earlier posts about the 2.11BSD system and potential port to Z180 and
so on). And then I want to define the ONE TRUE WAY(TM) of doing each
thing. But before I do this I want to go right back to basics and look
at the object model used in the operating system itself. For instance
the stuff like the oft (open file table), inode table, the filesystem
table (I mean Sun VFS which isn't in 2.11BSD AFAIK but eventually
should be), the device table and so on. And also the user-visible
objects like files, sockets etc which map to kernel objects.

So once I have sorted all this out and created an object model that
the kernel can use efficiently, with compiler support (like C++
without the bloat, like java with internal pointers and ability to get
at the bits and bytes of your objects, like C without all the void *
stuff and with automatic handling of stuff like vtables), and
converted the kernel and all drivers to use it, then I think I will
have an object model that is useful in practice. So my idea then is to
export it to userlevel, so that userland programs can be rewritten
into this new C-like object oriented language and calls like: count =
read(fd, buf, size) would change to: count = fd.read(buf, size) since
kernel objects are objects. There would also be a compatibility layer
that allows you to keep a table of integer fds and their kernel
objects in userspace for porting.

After this I would start to look at popular libraries like the C
library or the X-Window system, and convert them to use the new object
model, while also providing the compatibility layer as I did for the
kernel interface. Ultimately the result would be a bit like Java, but
using all the familiar Unix objects and familiar Unix calling
conventions (such as argument passing by reference or malloc/memcpy
stuff that Java can't do). Also without any header files or
boilerplate of any description, which is one of my pet peeves with
Java, C, C++ etc.

I really think that the solution to bloat is to go through and rewrite
everything to do things in a more standardized way with more reuse.
Also I think that the massive amount of bloat arises to some extent
because the environment lends itself to writing non maintainable code
(for example you have to write loads of boilerplate and synchronize
function definitions in various places, which discourages you from
changing a function definition even if that's the right thing to do in
a situation). So there's always the temptation to add another
compatibility layer rather than dealing with the bloat. Rewriting
things in a much more minimal and maintainable style is the answer.

Another reason for bloat is that authors have to support millions of
slightly different systems. My idea is to totally standardize it, like
POSIX but much more drastically so. Think about Java, it defines a
strict virtual machine so there's nothing to change when you port your
code to another platform. I haven't totally decided how to handle
word-size issues in this context, but I am sure there is a way.

Did i mention I also have plans for world domination? :)

cheers, Nick


On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 1:03 PM, Steve Johnson <scj at yaccman.com> wrote:
>
> These stories certainly rang true to me.  I think it's interesting to pose
> the question, to be a bit more contemporary, "What do we need to do to make
> open source code higher quality?"  I think the original arguments (that open
> source would be high quality because everybody would read the code and fix
> the bugs) has a bit of validity.  But, IMHO, it is swamped by the typical
> in-coherence of the software.
>
> It seems to me to be glaringly obvious that if you add a single on/off
> option to a program, and don't want the quality of the code to decrease, you
> should a priori double the amount of testing you do before it releasing it.
> If you have a carefully designed program with multiple phases with firewalls
> between them, you might be able to get away with only 10 or 20% more
> testing.
>
> So look at gcc with nearly 600 lines in the man page describing just the
> names of the options...   It seems obvious that the actual amount of testing
> of these combinations is a set of measure 0 in the space of all possible
> invocations.  And the observed fact is that if you try to do something at
> all unusual, no matter how reasonable it may seem, it is likely to fail.
> Additionally, it is kind sad to see the same functionality (e.g., increasing
> the default stack size) is done so differently on different OS's.  Even
> within Linux, setting the locale (at least at one time) was quite different
> from Linux to Linux.
>
> And I think you can argue that gcc is a success story...
>
> But how much longer can this go on?  What can we do to fight the exponential
> bloat of this and other open-souce projects.  All ideas cheerfully
> entertained...
>
> Steve
>



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