2011/2/2 erik quanstrom <quans...@quanstro.net>: >> There was some mention that, during the history of Plan 9, developers >> had difficulty maintaining two different languages on the system. I >> wonder how much of that difficulty would still apply today. Although >> the kernel could concievably be translated to a modern compiled >> language, I doubt it could be written in Go. If Go were used, then, >> there would still have to be two languages/compilers/development >> environments on the system. > > although the proof is in the putting, i don't see why a kernel > in principle, can't be written in go, or a slightly restricted subset > of go.
There existed part of the tree called "pchw," renamed "tiny" and then removed due to lack of maintenance that used the xv6 bootloader and implemented a tiny "Hello, World" kernel. It's clear that some changes would have to be made for a serious kernel (ensuring not blocking in an interrupt handler for instance), but it's certainly possible -- and has been done -- with the language as-is. --dho > - erik > >
