Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 06:45:33AM +0200, lu...@proxima.alt.za wrote: But it's a strange thing to want to do. A bit like asking for the Ford Model T gear shift in a modern car. I reject this analogy and the implied value judgement. Choices have been made by those who had the right influence (you may want to call it power) and some of those choices were known to be wrong at the time or were discovered to be wrong subsequently - we call this history. The best we can do now is to make sure that when new choices present themselves (which is all the time, of course) the decision making is closer to the needs of those who have to live with them. The rest is known familiarly as politics. What is your point? I need to elevate myself with in trade organizations to avoid using javascript? I'm not sure where you're going with this.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Tuesday, 26 March 2013 17:03:14 UTC+11, Kurt H Maier wrote: On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 06:45:33AM +0200, lu...@proxima.alt.za wrote: But it's a strange thing to want to do. A bit like asking for the Ford Model T gear shift in a modern car. I reject this analogy and the implied value judgement. Choices have been made by those who had the right influence (you may want to call it power) and some of those choices were known to be wrong at the time or were discovered to be wrong subsequently - we call this history. The best we can do now is to make sure that when new choices present themselves (which is all the time, of course) the decision making is closer to the needs of those who have to live with them. The rest is known familiarly as politics. What is your point? I need to elevate myself with in trade organizations to avoid using javascript? I'm not sure where you're going with this. It is a pointless reflection. There is no need for a Model T gear box, and there hasn't been for years.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On 03/25/2013 11:57 AM, lu...@proxima.alt.za wrote: Yes, I run Go on native Plan9, Go breaks away from a number of traditions that have long become obsolete and that is its main merit. The price is not only in having to adjust to the change, but also in some sacred cows being slaughtered in the process. But Go also opens the door to better ways of doing things. The build system, raw as it still is, is streets ahead of any conventional build system, but it is tightly coupled to the language. Portability across platforms is much easier, in the Plan 9 tradition, but requires a set of build tools ([568][ac]) that users are not familiar with and [568]l becomes the new bottleneck, to many users' surprise. Cross-development - my favourite feature - becomes much easier, but I am having a great deal of trouble getting my head around all the complications it brings with it. Philosophically, Plan 9 has rattled the proverbial cage and Go is an earthquake by comparison. The outcome is still to be evaluated. But not everyone is going to see it in the same way. Of relevance here is that if Rob and Russ and Ken had let considerations such as pampering slow hardware, we'd have a different language and many features would not be available. At the same time, the need for a slim version of Go will grow with acceptance of the fat model and then people like Kurt may be inspired to restore in the linker the ability to trim libraries of unused modules (don't hold your breath!). If the Go developers had started from the other end, as I would have been tempted to do, the outcome would definitely look nothing like what we have. The nice bit is that there are enough people out there to consider such options and some of them are actually willing to publish their efforts. The people who insists that ONE tool should encompass all these options are those who are too unproductive to do it themselves and fail to see that no-one owes them. In my other life managing a backpackers, I see way too many young people who seem to think that our generation somehow owe them something they are able but not willing to seek for themselves. I could tell you where most of them seem to come from, but I'm sure that would be unfair to all those they leave behind while spending money they did not earn to travel in comfort around the world. ++L PS: Gorka is making amazing progress with the plan9/arm port and the reason I know is that I've just tested his latest efforts on the Sheevaplug and the present obstacle does not seem unsurmountable - but it is very real, so it's not working yet. Watch golang-dev on Google Groups for updates. For me Go is an overkill in same line and, or manner as is Java; I hate Java, C# and the .NET in particular; Have not checked Inferno/Limbo as yet to the requisite depth... Q. What is GC (Garbage collection)? A. Yet another approach to create inefficiency in the programmers :P -- Balwinder S 'bdheeman' Dheeman (http://werc.homelinux.net/contact/) GNU/Linux, developed by volunteers, is much better, but it's not the best as yet. Do you too work on making a difference?
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
It is possible to use computers without also using javascript. But it's a strange thing to want to do. A bit like asking for the Ford Model T gear shift in a modern car. Your addiction to popular web browsers is your own problem. http://img.stanleylieber.com/src/15137/img/1364299588.jpg -sl
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I'm starting to wonder why I decided to subscribe to yet another newsgroup, after having unsubscribed from so many in the past for lack of content. I guess I never learn the required lessons. Ruben On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:07 PM, s...@9front.org wrote: It is possible to use computers without also using javascript. But it's a strange thing to want to do. A bit like asking for the Ford Model T gear shift in a modern car. Your addiction to popular web browsers is your own problem. http://img.stanleylieber.com/src/15137/img/1364299588.jpg -sl
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I'm subscribed to this mailgroup so I can find out why other people are subscribed to this mailgroup.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Tuesday 26 of March 2013 13:11:11 Rubén Berenguel wrote: I'm starting to wonder why I decided to subscribe to yet another newsgroup, after having unsubscribed from so many in the past for lack of content. I guess I never learn the required lessons. as a counterport, picol...@software-lab.de has never let me down ;-) (archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/picolisp@software-lab.de/ ) cheers, -- dexen deVries [[[↓][→]]] ``we, the humanity'' is the greatest experiment we, the humanity, ever undertook.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
That's pretty meta on your part Hiro. I'm here for plan9 knowledge, tips, tricks, news and related things (I guess go is a related thing, although I still have to manage to install it... mercurial screwed me up last time I tried to install it in P9) As for picolisp dexen... Have never checked it (I program in Lisp occasionally, so it's not fear of the lots of innecessary and stupid parentheses :) , I try to keep newsgroups to the bare minimum. Up to until now I was in just one more (the Ben Nanonote user/developer list) but decided adding one more couldn't be as bad as I feared. Ruben On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:16 PM, hiro 23h...@gmail.com wrote: I'm subscribed to this mailgroup so I can find out why other people are subscribed to this mailgroup.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On 26 March 2013 12:11, Rubén Berenguel ru...@mostlymaths.net wrote: I'm starting to wonder why I decided to subscribe to yet another newsgroup, after having unsubscribed from so many in the past for lack of content. Any unmoderated list is likely to have bursts of somewhat diffuse exchanges. Normally 9fans is fairly quiet, and the content might be more technically relevant for you (if you're interested in the system). It's a way to get some questions answered (eg, how do I boot my Raspberry Pi?), but not all (in my case, where did I put my Raspberry Pi?).
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Where did I put my Raspberry Pi is one of the few questions I don't have :D Currently my worse problem is I have my router upstairs and HDMI TV downstairs. No chord :( So far I've found the answers I was looking (more or less, still can't get gmail to work with acme/Mail, unknown error :/) but I have seen much pointless emails in the last 2 weeks and I was thinking of shutting the thing. Ruben On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Charles Forsyth charles.fors...@gmail.comwrote: On 26 March 2013 12:11, Rubén Berenguel ru...@mostlymaths.net wrote: I'm starting to wonder why I decided to subscribe to yet another newsgroup, after having unsubscribed from so many in the past for lack of content. Any unmoderated list is likely to have bursts of somewhat diffuse exchanges. Normally 9fans is fairly quiet, and the content might be more technically relevant for you (if you're interested in the system). It's a way to get some questions answered (eg, how do I boot my Raspberry Pi?), but not all (in my case, where did I put my Raspberry Pi?).
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
2013/3/25 s...@9front.org And how do you manage to browser the web? 9front did some work on mothra. For trivial javascript I try charon (which was sufficient to configure my wifi router). As a last resort I VNC to another operating system. For the vast majority of what I do, mothra is sufficient. -sl Yes. This. I run my terminals in qemu/kvm on linux, My servers on real hardware. Or in the cloud (thanks Kurt). And i switch back to linux for mplayer and to watch youtube videos (and for some other websites) but i really like mothra. It's so pure. You just gotta love it. The 9front guys did a really good job with it. I even use Plan 9 at my workspace. I just ftpfs everything and massage my namespace anyway i want. And give the occasional $MAKE command through ssh. It's so noiseless. Of course there is room for improvement. But I can't complain I have all the tools ☺
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
but i really like mothra. It's so pure. You just gotta love it. The 9front guys did a really good job with it. To be clear: Tom Duff created mothra. We made some alterations. -sl
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Yes, I run Go on native Plan9, Go breaks away from a number of traditions that have long become obsolete and that is its main merit. The price is not only in having to adjust to the change, but also in some sacred cows being slaughtered in the process. But Go also opens the door to better ways of doing things. The build system, raw as it still is, is streets ahead of any conventional build system, but it is tightly coupled to the language. Portability across platforms is much easier, in the Plan 9 tradition, but requires a set of build tools ([568][ac]) that users are not familiar with and [568]l becomes the new bottleneck, to many users' surprise. Cross-development - my favourite feature - becomes much easier, but I am having a great deal of trouble getting my head around all the complications it brings with it. Philosophically, Plan 9 has rattled the proverbial cage and Go is an earthquake by comparison. The outcome is still to be evaluated. But not everyone is going to see it in the same way. Of relevance here is that if Rob and Russ and Ken had let considerations such as pampering slow hardware, we'd have a different language and many features would not be available. At the same time, the need for a slim version of Go will grow with acceptance of the fat model and then people like Kurt may be inspired to restore in the linker the ability to trim libraries of unused modules (don't hold your breath!). If the Go developers had started from the other end, as I would have been tempted to do, the outcome would definitely look nothing like what we have. The nice bit is that there are enough people out there to consider such options and some of them are actually willing to publish their efforts. The people who insists that ONE tool should encompass all these options are those who are too unproductive to do it themselves and fail to see that no-one owes them. In my other life managing a backpackers, I see way too many young people who seem to think that our generation somehow owe them something they are able but not willing to seek for themselves. I could tell you where most of them seem to come from, but I'm sure that would be unfair to all those they leave behind while spending money they did not earn to travel in comfort around the world. ++L PS: Gorka is making amazing progress with the plan9/arm port and the reason I know is that I've just tested his latest efforts on the Sheevaplug and the present obstacle does not seem unsurmountable - but it is very real, so it's not working yet. Watch golang-dev on Google Groups for updates.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On 23/03/2013 20:23, ron minnich wrote: I'll happily pay the price of bigger binaries for things such as the %v format. I don't write hello, world that often, or even care about its size when I do. One demo we used to do for Unix was show we could write an executable program that was 2 bytes. It was cute. Did it matter, in the end? Not really. But we used to call 4k programs bloated. I have a hard time worrying about 1M binaries on $200 machines with 12 GB/s memory bandwidth and 4G memory. It's 2013. Even if I deeply love small and beautiful code, the only thing I really care in everyday's life is computers responsiveness. And I found myself too often unhappy with nowadays computers responsiveness. And maybe it's only a matter of code design quality. One may write really good and efficient code that will consume tens of KBytes when compiled. So to me the code size is not that much a big deal as far as the result works pretty well. Nicolas
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I know that the population of 9fans contains a sizeable percentage of people who would like to cast Plan 9 in amber, to hold it immutable as an example to future generations. That's an unrealistic expectation. Maybe, but maybe that's the best we can do, given that the conditions that gave rise to Plan 9 have long ceased to exist and are unlikely to recur. A version of Plan 9 untainted by the predominance of the Intel and Windows philosophies is needed to reminds us of how things could have turned out. But it is all much more complex than a mailing list could possibly track. Since the 1970s, it is clear that technology has taken a number of quantum leaps that could have landed in different places and all the missed opportunities, good and bad, need to be recorded as well as explored because we sure as hell are not in the best of all possible futures, right now. Unless you're some virtual entity such as Microsoft, Intel, Google or Facebook and could not care less about the fate of individuals. Oops, that's probably a bit rambly, but I think most observers will understand. ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 7:19 PM, s...@9front.org wrote: Maybe, but maybe that's the best we can do, given that the conditions that gave rise to Plan 9 have long ceased to exist and are unlikely to recur. And maybe we're missing the point but there are still a few of us out there using Plan 9 daily as our primary interface to computers. For some of us, for the tasks we are performing, we just don't need all this modern crap that seems to have broken everyone else's heart. -sl And how do you manage to browser the web? Just to do that I'm forced to use software bigger and more complex than plan9 itself. Sincerely, Aram -- http://thewayofthecode.posterous.com/
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
And how do you manage to browser the web? 9front did some work on mothra. For trivial javascript I try charon (which was sufficient to configure my wifi router). As a last resort I VNC to another operating system. For the vast majority of what I do, mothra is sufficient. -sl
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Maybe, but maybe that's the best we can do, given that the conditions that gave rise to Plan 9 have long ceased to exist and are unlikely to recur. A version of Plan 9 untainted by the predominance of the Intel and Windows philosophies is needed to reminds us of how things could have turned out. what conditions do you feel gave rise to plan 9 that no longer exist? - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
what conditions do you feel gave rise to plan 9 that no longer exist? Modem speeds below 19200bps? Reality engines costing as much as houses and considerably less accessible? Skill sets in IT practitioners way above the norm? Everything that the desktop PC eventually brought to an end, I suppose. In a word, elitism, largely earned rather than inherited. You did ask! ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
what conditions do you feel gave rise to plan 9 that no longer exist? I think there is a feeling that Plan 9 was created to address specific problems (refraining from turning easy jobs into hard jobs, translated as getting real work done on slow hardware) that have been overtaken by history and the observed progression of technology. -sl
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
In a word, elitism, largely earned rather than inherited. You did ask! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4398842 it doesn't matter if it's real or not :)
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 01:51:56PM -0600, andrey mirtchovski wrote: In a word, elitism, largely earned rather than inherited. You did ask! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4398842 it doesn't matter if it's real or not :) This is the first time, I feel I match one criterion to belong to a community! -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 03:38:26PM -0400, erik quanstrom wrote: what conditions do you feel gave rise to plan 9 that no longer exist? - erik Bell Labs' budget, talent pool, and institutional administrative philsosophy. khm
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 07:31:27PM +, aram wrote: And how do you manage to browser the web? It is possible to use computers without also using javascript. khm
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
It is possible to use computers without also using javascript. But it's a strange thing to want to do. A bit like asking for the Ford Model T gear shift in a modern car. Choices have been made by those who had the right influence (you may want to call it power) and some of those choices were known to be wrong at the time or were discovered to be wrong subsequently - we call this history. The best we can do now is to make sure that when new choices present themselves (which is all the time, of course) the decision making is closer to the needs of those who have to live with them. The rest is known familiarly as politics. ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
andrey, I agreed the language is nice and that's why I also use it. I just pointed out that binaries are one order of magnitude larger, as you just proved. perhaps I shouldn't have raised this. I didn't want to bother anyone. El Mar 24, 2013, a las 12:45 AM, andrey mirtchovski mirtchov...@gmail.com escribió: If you want real programs which are bigger that I (we) actually use that will be (much) bigger in go: ls, cp rm mv cat acid, I can go on. Small programs are useful and important. here's a representative set. the programs are identical in behaviour and arguments to the Plan 9 set. the size is as reported by du, in kilobytes: 1456 ./date/date 1460 ./cat/cat 1564 ./cleanname/cleanname 1564 ./tee/tee 1736 ./echo/echo 1764 ./cp/cp 1772 ./uniq/uniq 1780 ./cmp/cmp 1780 ./freq/freq 1780 ./wc/wc 1792 ./comm/comm binaries are bigger and for example replacing the minimal sets of commands of the system, this can make the minimal system at least 5 times bigger easy. if that was a real issue you were trying to solve there are things you can do to help yourself. most notably sticking everything in a single binary and invoking the right function based on your argv0. it took me less than 15 minutes to convert the above code to work as a single binary and most of that was in handling clashing flags (it would've been a non-issue if I had used flagsets when writing the original programs). size at the very end: $ date test.txt $ ln -s $GOPATH/bin/all cat $ ln -s $GOPATH/bin/all wc $ ./cat test.txt Sat Mar 23 17:32:42 MDT 2013 $ ./wc test.txt 1 6 29 test.txt $ du -k $GOPATH/bin/all 1888 /Users/andrey/bin/all the size of the original binaries on plan9 is 588k. what was a factor of 30 is now a factor of 3. all tests still pass and it took less time to complete than writing this email. there's an even better solution, but it won't work on plan9 because the go tool is slow there :)
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I am intrigued by go but I mostly write embedded code for a day job and I believe go doesn't really cover that space well. The other part of my job is image processing which would be apropriate for Go but my employer has mandated c++ so that is the end of that. I do have a few honest questions about the current state of Go. Is there a standardised GUI binding for go, somthing cross-platform? Is there any concensus as go could be used on bare metal or is that just un-realistic given garbage collection and the relatively large runtime. has there been discussion on how some of the runtime could be moved into a go-specific OS - would that even be a good/interesting idea? -Steve
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
All below is opinion, possibly uninformed. Is there a standardised GUI binding for go, somthing cross-platform? Not yet, although I think the pressure is building. At the moment, from where I am, it seems that a lot of development relies on interfacing with a web browser and there are a few specialised packages that interface with the conventional Unix toolkits (GTK, etc.). These last are not, in my opinion, cross-platform (enough). Is there any concensus as go could be used on bare metal or is that just un-realistic given garbage collection and the relatively large runtime. I have seen no sign of this, but here I think Rob is right, the hardware is moving into the cross-hairs, rather than Go bend over to it. The ARM A13 and A10 as well as the AVRs have shown that big CPU feature footprint does not have to mean a big physical footprint. Maybe the contrary applies. The GPUs puzzle me in this context, but I'm not sure how relevant they are. has there been discussion on how some of the runtime could be moved into a go-specific OS - would that even be a good/interesting idea? It's something that struck me recently too. Go as it stands is not ideal for operating system development and there has been discussion of how the runtime and especially the garbage collector could be redesigned for bare metal, but I think the demand needs to become more shrill before the design can become more than just a concept. ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
To go back to the original subject, since gcc(1) has taken the C++ path, I will be more than happy of an increase of Go programs since, thanks to the work of some people, Go for Plan9 is possible. As for the Go language, it is sufficiently near C, with extensions that feel natural, to be interesting and easy to grasp for a C programmer (and the gotour allows to start easily). But it is the same as some parts of mathematics: I was not really interested in them because they were not in the neighborhood of what I was interested in at the moment. I finally got interested in these parts later, when my wandering suddenly arrived in these neglected parts, reminding me something (and then I saw why it was interesting). So Go is stocked in a part of my mind, perhaps simply waiting for a problem it will be the tool to solve. But since I'm one of the few who use litterate programming (cweb), I would probably start by wrinting a goweb instead of using the dedicated tools... -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On 03/24/2013 10:48 AM, tlaro...@polynum.com wrote: But since I'm one of the few who use litterate programming (cweb), I would probably start by wrinting a goweb instead of using the dedicated tools... https://bitbucket.org/santucco/goweb The original thread from golang-nuts: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/6UlkxEB49Rc
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 12:56:54PM +0100, Dustin Fechner wrote: On 03/24/2013 10:48 AM, tlaro...@polynum.com wrote: But since I'm one of the few who use litterate programming (cweb), I would probably start by wrinting a goweb instead of using the dedicated tools... https://bitbucket.org/santucco/goweb The original thread from golang-nuts: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/6UlkxEB49Rc Thanks for the info! -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
To go back to the original subject Surely this is the first time that has ever been done on 9fans? This is 9fans, not 'Nam. There are rules.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Eh, not so much anymore. The morlocks have taken over, which is a shame: 9fans used to be one of the best technical mailing lists on the Internet. Those days are long gone. The ankle biters are too numerous now. (Cue requisite flames.) - Dan C. On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Winston Kodogo kod...@gmail.com wrote: To go back to the original subject Surely this is the first time that has ever been done on 9fans? This is 9fans, not 'Nam. There are rules.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
The ankle biters are too numerous now. Trolling is a art they tell themselves.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On 2013-03-24, at 6:24 PM, andrey mirtchovski wrote: Trolling is a art they tell themselves. On Slashdot.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 09:20:04PM -0400, Dan Cross wrote: Eh, not so much anymore. The morlocks have taken over, which is a shame: 9fans used to be one of the best technical mailing lists on the Internet. Those days are long gone. The ankle biters are too numerous now. (Cue requisite flames.) - Dan C. I agree. It's horrible that you can't seem to have any sort of technical discussion these days without some guy butting in and telling everyone to shut up because computers are so crazy fast that nothing even matters, or that nobody else cares about the technology involved, etc. It's a shame. khm
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Stop.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Stop. Collaborate and listen.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 09:42:09PM -0400, Dan Cross wrote: Yeah. Or someone who is arguably the biggest problem on the list adding absolutely nothing other than some uninformed, dogmatically driven, rigid meta-commentary. Maybe that's all that person can do. He should keep feeling smug while turning the crank, though: he obviously knows more than the guy who designed and wrote most of it. ...wait. Are we talking about you? Because I was talking about Rob Pike. khm
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 9:54 PM, Kurt H Maier kh...@intma.in wrote: On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 09:42:09PM -0400, Dan Cross wrote: Yeah. Or someone who is arguably the biggest problem on the list adding absolutely nothing other than some uninformed, dogmatically driven, rigid meta-commentary. Maybe that's all that person can do. He should keep feeling smug while turning the crank, though: he obviously knows more than the guy who designed and wrote most of it. ...wait. Are we talking about you? Because I was talking about Rob Pike. When you have produced a fraction of a percent of what Rob Pike has produced over his career, I might take you seriously. Until then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect And I'm out. - Dan C.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 10:02:12PM -0400, Dan Cross wrote: When you have produced a fraction of a percent of what Rob Pike has produced over his career, I might take you seriously. Until then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect If, over the course of my life, I produce a fraction of a percent of what Rob Pike has produced, it will be too much. But let me assure you that I am chilled to the quick that Dan Cross* does not take me seriously on the internet. And I'm out. Thanks for letting us know. khm * who?
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Yes, I run Go on native Plan9, what I wanted toi say is that I would be happy to see some minimalistic (in a spirit of plan9) written in, and integrated with, Go... [Beat my English, as usually, I am not a native speaker] And yes, binaries are extraordinarily huge (no idea, why). However, I still like Go better than C, even though i _trelly loved C_ since i go my first C compiler. ++pac On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Francisco J Ballesteros n...@lsub.orgwrote: go runs already on 9. Binaries are one order of magnitude larger and the go tool part of the runtime code are, well…. but it's already there. On Mar 23, 2013, at 12:40 PM, Peter A. Cejchan tyap...@gmail.com wrote: I still hope that some clone of plan9/nix/nxm will merge with Go
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Sorry for that. I am not a natuive speaker. English uses different punctuation then my mothertongue. However, I hope you got what I wanted to say. ++pac On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 6:08 PM, hiro 23h...@gmail.com wrote: On 3/23/13, Peter A. Cejchan tyap...@gmail.com wrote: @Lucio: I still hope that some clone of plan9/nix/nxm will merge with Go ... just my dream, and I am just an embryo of a programmer (as multiply stated here and elsewhere) so take it easy however, I'm moving all my old stuff (and creating new one) to Go [unfortunately, I am afraid I will never see the 9GoNix OS ;-) brought into life] do I need 3d glasses to read your text? words don't really stick out with all these random parantheses, strange punctuations and double-spaces.
[9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
There are, regularly, mention for porting or having gcc(1) on Plan9 in order to be able to port more user level applications (because user level applications not only depend on a bunch of things---generally ignoring standards---but on compiler idiosynchrasies too...). With gcc 4.8.0, the implementation of gcc is now in C++... And to compile a compiler, one needs a C++ compiler... Great! I always thought that, because of what can be embedded in a compiler (cf. Ken Thompson's Trusting Trust) and because of a bootstrapping process (as explained in the red dragon book for example), the compiling of a compiler should need the strict minimum... IMHO, with the advent of a crisis compared to which 1929 will be a minor storm, there will be a general disgust and lack of trust and a return for crucial things to small is beautiful (and safer). Plan9 is not dead, simply waiting its finest hour. Gcc on Plan9 is. And I won't weep. -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
With gcc 4.8.0, the implementation of gcc is now in C++... And to compile a compiler, one needs a C++ compiler... This is not an insurmountable obstacle. In fact it's the normal situation when retargeting any self-compiled compiler for a new instruction set.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
So, you perceive it, too unfortunately, then there will be no more computers, even electric power nomads don't need it, and won't care :-( ++pac IMHO, with the advent of a crisis compared to which 1929 will be a minor storm, there will be a general disgust and lack of trust and a return for crucial things to small is beautiful (and safer).
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I wonder if the new gcc will be written in cfront compatible c++ - that would work... ☺ -Steve
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 09:53:29AM +, Richard Miller wrote: With gcc 4.8.0, the implementation of gcc is now in C++... And to compile a compiler, one needs a C++ compiler... This is not an insurmountable obstacle. In fact it's the normal situation when retargeting any self-compiled compiler for a new instruction set. Except that C is a great language because it is both high level enough and low level (near machine) that a compiler written in C without optimizations and pure integer is easy (less expensive) to write from scratch. Here, the dependencies increase. -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 10:54:14AM +0100, Peter A. Cejchan wrote: So, you perceive it, too unfortunately, then there will be no more computers, even electric power nomads don't need it, and won't care :-( ++pac IMHO, with the advent of a crisis compared to which 1929 will be a minor storm, there will be a general disgust and lack of trust and a return for crucial things to small is beautiful (and safer). I guess you are in Europe too? The only ones to refuse to see it can be described by François Mauriac's sentence: The ostrich hides in the sand is little brainless head, trying to persuade itself that its feathered rear is offending nobody's eyes. -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Yep... On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 11:10 AM, tlaro...@polynum.com wrote: On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 10:54:14AM +0100, Peter A. Cejchan wrote: So, you perceive it, too unfortunately, then there will be no more computers, even electric power nomads don't need it, and won't care :-( ++pac IMHO, with the advent of a crisis compared to which 1929 will be a minor storm, there will be a general disgust and lack of trust and a return for crucial things to small is beautiful (and safer). I guess you are in Europe too? The only ones to refuse to see it can be described by François Mauriac's sentence: The ostrich hides in the sand is little brainless head, trying to persuade itself that its feathered rear is offending nobody's eyes. -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Except that C is a great language because it is both high level enough and low level (near machine) that a compiler written in C without optimizations and pure integer is easy (less expensive) to write from scratch. Here, the dependencies increase. I wouldn't cry too many tears over GCC. Having investigated Hogan's port of GCC (3.0) to Plan 9, my impression is that GCC would never really fit in with the Plan 9 paradigm, it is way too expensive and unrewarding to bend it into shape, C++ notwithstanding. Hence Go, together with the upgraded (if you want to call them that) Plan 9 development tools. I'm still of the opinion that a convergence of the Plan 9 tools and the Go development can become the Esperanto of information technology, given that ease of portability to foreign architectures is a founding principle. Only time will tell, sadly I don't see any organisation or authoritative person recommending 8c et al for development, where I expect that would be a step forward. The obsession with optimisation, in part, is to be blamed, too. But not alone. Just as a side note, I was hoping to port Plan 9 to the Olimex LinuXino, one of many project that may or may not see the light of day. It comes with some or other variety of Linux, but has too little memory (64MiB) to be more than an embedded prototyping system and the default Linux release comes without the GCC development system. It struck me that the Go system could be cross-compiled for Linux/Arm on my Plan 9 network and used on the LinuXino. In fact, I have implemented some small applications in this way although I have had no occasion to do more than that. If I could figure a way to compile the Go distribution with its own tools, I may be able to prove that Go is a viable release development system without GCC backing it, something we have shown to a smaller audience with the Plan9/386 distribution. ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
@Lucio: I still hope that some clone of plan9/nix/nxm will merge with Go ... just my dream, and I am just an embryo of a programmer (as multiply stated here and elsewhere) so take it easy however, I'm moving all my old stuff (and creating new one) to Go [unfortunately, I am afraid I will never see the 9GoNix OS ;-) brought into life] Cheers, peter. On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 11:24 AM, lu...@proxima.alt.za wrote: Except that C is a great language because it is both high level enough and low level (near machine) that a compiler written in C without optimizations and pure integer is easy (less expensive) to write from scratch. Here, the dependencies increase. I wouldn't cry too many tears over GCC. Having investigated Hogan's port of GCC (3.0) to Plan 9, my impression is that GCC would never really fit in with the Plan 9 paradigm, it is way too expensive and unrewarding to bend it into shape, C++ notwithstanding. Hence Go, together with the upgraded (if you want to call them that) Plan 9 development tools. I'm still of the opinion that a convergence of the Plan 9 tools and the Go development can become the Esperanto of information technology, given that ease of portability to foreign architectures is a founding principle. Only time will tell, sadly I don't see any organisation or authoritative person recommending 8c et al for development, where I expect that would be a step forward. The obsession with optimisation, in part, is to be blamed, too. But not alone. Just as a side note, I was hoping to port Plan 9 to the Olimex LinuXino, one of many project that may or may not see the light of day. It comes with some or other variety of Linux, but has too little memory (64MiB) to be more than an embedded prototyping system and the default Linux release comes without the GCC development system. It struck me that the Go system could be cross-compiled for Linux/Arm on my Plan 9 network and used on the LinuXino. In fact, I have implemented some small applications in this way although I have had no occasion to do more than that. If I could figure a way to compile the Go distribution with its own tools, I may be able to prove that Go is a viable release development system without GCC backing it, something we have shown to a smaller audience with the Plan9/386 distribution. ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
It has long been the case that gcc can only be compiled with gcc. Switching its impl. lang. to c++ doesn't make the porting problem any worse. The other industrial strength open source c/c++ compiler clang/llvm is also written in c++. They can both be built on windows so it would certainly be possible to port them to plan9 if there was real demand.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
[unfortunately, I am afraid I will never see the 9GoNix OS ;-) brought into life] I think Plan 9 spoils us, the OS is just a tool, not a faith. Just as Go is not a faith, just a logical evolution of Alef, through Limbo, to the platforms and conditions that prevail today. What matters is to be able to produce code that runs on useful platforms and does not require blood, sweat and tears to be made to work. Myself, I want to teach underprivileged kids to program, the OS platform of choice is Plan 9, but I also need to prepare them for the Windows, Linux and OSX world. ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
It has long been the case that gcc can only be compiled with gcc. Switching its impl. lang. to c++ doesn't make the porting problem any worse. The other industrial strength open source c/c++ compiler clang/llvm is also written in c++. They can both be built on windows so it would certainly be possible to port them to plan9 if there was real demand. +1 ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
go runs already on 9. Binaries are one order of magnitude larger and the go tool part of the runtime code are, well…. but it's already there. On Mar 23, 2013, at 12:40 PM, Peter A. Cejchan tyap...@gmail.com wrote: I still hope that some clone of plan9/nix/nxm will merge with Go
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Binaries are one order of magnitude larger and the go tool part of the runtime code are, well…. sorry to be dense. larger than what? - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Than plan 9's C ones. On Mar 23, 2013, at 5:09 PM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote: Binaries are one order of magnitude larger and the go tool part of the runtime code are, well…. sorry to be dense. larger than what? - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Binaries are one order of magnitude larger and the go tool part of the runtime code are, well…. sorry to be dense. larger than what? C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat Mar 23 12:20:57 EDT 2013, n...@lsub.org wrote: Than plan 9's C ones. On Mar 23, 2013, at 5:09 PM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote: Binaries are one order of magnitude larger and the go tool part of the runtime code are, well…. sorry to be dense. larger than what? ah. i thought you were saying that it was an order of magnitude larger than the unix version of go. by the way, does this scale with lines of go code, or is it just that the trivial go executable is megs? - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Binaries are one order of magnitude larger and the go tool part of the runtime code are, well…. sorry to be dense. larger than what? My guess larger than they need to be because the Go linker does not drop unused library modules. Nemo may mean something else, of course. ++L
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
ah. i thought you were saying that it was an order of magnitude larger than the unix version of go. by the way, does this scale with lines of go code, or is it just that the trivial go executable is megs? A simple hello world is megs. G.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On 3/23/13, Peter A. Cejchan tyap...@gmail.com wrote: @Lucio: I still hope that some clone of plan9/nix/nxm will merge with Go ... just my dream, and I am just an embryo of a programmer (as multiply stated here and elsewhere) so take it easy however, I'm moving all my old stuff (and creating new one) to Go [unfortunately, I am afraid I will never see the 9GoNix OS ;-) brought into life] do I need 3d glasses to read your text? words don't really stick out with all these random parantheses, strange punctuations and double-spaces.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Much of which is symbols. Plus, a a simple computer has gigs of memory. Yes, it's remarkable how much bigger programs are now than they were 20 years ago, but 20 years ago the same things were being said. I understand your objection - I really do - but it's time to face the future. The smart phone in your pocket is roughly 100 times faster than the machine Plan 9 was developed on and has 1000 times the RAM. Computers are incredibly powerful now, and the technologies of today can use that power well (as I claim Go does) or poorly (as some others do), or ignore it at the risk of obsolescence. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat Mar 23 13:16:39 EDT 2013, robp...@gmail.com wrote: Much of which is symbols. Plus, a a simple computer has gigs of memory. so, assuming demand loading, this is more of a disk space issue rather than a memory issue? - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
What matters is to be able to produce code What matters is to get rid of code.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Although, in general, I agree. I think that having the resources doesn't mean we have to consume them (although we might if that pays off, of course). For example, looking at what go install does wrt what a few mkfiles would do for the same go source is illustrative of what I'm trying to say. On Mar 23, 2013, at 6:15 PM, Rob Pike robp...@gmail.com wrote: Much of which is symbols. Plus, a a simple computer has gigs of memory. Yes, it's remarkable how much bigger programs are now than they were 20 years ago, but 20 years ago the same things were being said. I understand your objection - I really do - but it's time to face the future. The smart phone in your pocket is roughly 100 times faster than the machine Plan 9 was developed on and has 1000 times the RAM. Computers are incredibly powerful now, and the technologies of today can use that power well (as I claim Go does) or poorly (as some others do), or ignore it at the risk of obsolescence. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
it's time to face the future. will go be able to run in the browser with activex? is it compatible with node.js?
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I feel like the future is repeating itself. Don't know what you find so worthy in this.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 10:15:20AM -0700, Rob Pike wrote: Yes, it's remarkable how much bigger programs are now than they were 20 years ago, but 20 years ago the same things were being said. Can we conclude that the added power is lost for the result obtained from the applications, since it is taken by the machinery? Just as if a washing powder giving already a perfect result 20 years ago had been improved (from perfect to more than perfect) being able to give a perfect result even if you make a knot around the heavy dirt before throwing in the washing-machine: you have a perfectly clean result (as you could obtain before, but without making the knot), except that you have to make the knots before and try to unmake them after? I remember when I started to work in a surveyor office. There was microstation, back in early 90s, that ran on a DOS extender with a perfect graphical performance (you were able to work flawlessly, zooming, panning or whatever). You were never waiting for the application or the display; it worked faster than your input. Once Windows improved came, it took several years for the computers to give the very same user experience, by an order of magnitude increase in power for the PC. It had to recover from Windows improvements first... -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On 3/23/13, Francisco J Ballesteros n...@lsub.org wrote: Although, in general, I agree. Are you surprised that you do?
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 6:15 PM, Rob Pike robp...@gmail.com wrote: Much of which is symbols. Plus, a a simple computer has gigs of memory. Yes, it's remarkable how much bigger programs are now than they were 20 years ago, but 20 years ago the same things were being said. I understand your objection - I really do - but it's time to face the future. The smart phone in your pocket is roughly 100 times faster than the machine Plan 9 was developed on and has 1000 times the RAM. I was merely stating facts, not criticising, as I am still learning about the go implementation, and I am sure there are good reasons why all this is true. In any case, the argument that there is more memory now is not a very good one unless you use it for something useful. The phone is very powerful, but it also runs on a battery and has to do many things on a budget, so that is not really an argument. Saying why you need/use the giant tables for may be. - With greater power comes greater need for restrain. G.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I'll try to say it in a different way. I asked Siri and (s)he said (s)he does not consume many resources. Now, that's nice. I'm willing to give up the machine resources for that, or for dialling by voice on my car. *But*, I'm not sure that to print Hi there I need a few megs, nor am I sure that to install a and compile a few sources I need to see hundreds of stats/reads; The funny thing is that the compilers seem to be really fast, but the go tool fixes that problem. Fortunately, a few mkfiles fix the go tool problems. Also, doing a cp /bin/echo /bin/hg improves things a bit. This is just IMHO, the language is nice as are parts of the runtime. I'm glad go is out there. On Mar 23, 2013, at 6:44 PM, hiro 23h...@gmail.com wrote: On 3/23/13, Francisco J Ballesteros n...@lsub.org wrote: Although, in general, I agree. Are you surprised that you do?
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I remember when I started to work in a surveyor office. There was microstation, back in early 90s, that ran on a DOS extender with a perfect graphical performance (you were able to work flawlessly, zooming, panning or whatever). You were never waiting for the application or the display; it worked faster than your input. Once Windows improved came, it took several years for the computers to give the very same user experience, by an order of magnitude increase in power for the PC. It had to recover from Windows improvements first... yes. this is a big problem. incremental improvement often fails. and we see this today with newer phones performing poorly with new and improved software. the way to get out of this trap is to provide real improvement by doing something new. (the term of art is disruptive—a rather annoying term. :-)) obviously the new approach isn't going to be as polished as the old approach. but if the new thing is a real improvement, folks will put up with the regressions in unimportant areas. there was an old way to say this, you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. :-) - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
this is not a new discussion, it started in november 2009. the fact
that it's just coming to 9fans is a sign of how far behind the times
we are :(
the go runtime is ~380k. that one you must carry always even in an
empty program (see below). what you're complaining about is the
side-effect of importing fmt and other big packages such as os and
net. with fmt you're sucking in all the unicode code tables and the
reflection code used to process printing arguments (which you can't
prove will not be used). the initial jump is big, but as your code
grows the binary size tends to increase slower -- all of the imports
are already in. the biggest program from the Go distribution
frequently in use is godoc. it deals with xml, json, binary
encoding, directory navigation, document preparation, source code
parsing, compression/decompression and serves the major website for go
-- golang.org... that program, statically linked, is 8 megs (64-bit).
i've seen things that deal with graphics which get to 20 megs. that is
reasonable, i think.
here's an illustrative progression of go binary sizes:
$ cat t.go
package main
func main(){
}
$ go build t.go; ls -l t
-rwxr-xr-x 1 andrey wheel 384880 Mar 23 12:43 t
$ cat t.go
package main
func main(){
println(hello)
}
$ go build t.go; ls -l t; ./t
-rwxr-xr-x 1 andrey wheel 389008 Mar 23 12:43 t
hello
$ cat t.go
package main
import unicode
var _ = unicode.MaxRune
func main() {
}
$ go build t.go; ls -l t
-rwxr-xr-x 1 andrey wheel 581024 Mar 23 12:45 t
$ cat t.go
package main
import fmt
var _ = fmt.Println
func main(){
}
$ go build t.go; ls -l t
-rwxr-xr-x 1 andrey wheel 1481920 Mar 23 12:44 t
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
It's pointless to complain about the size of hello world. It's not a real program. In Go's case it's larger than a C binary because the libraries (and the presence of a runtime) are capable of much more under the covers, but by the time you write a real program in Go you'll find the ratio of Go binary to C binary isn't nearly so large; the incremental cost to the binary of a Go source file compared to a C Go file is negligible. A house is much heavier than a tent, but it also has a much stronger foundation. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Thanks, Andrey, although what you say about Unicode and fmt isn't true. Believe it or not, we care about sizes and arranged that fmt doesn't need to import the whole Unicode tables, only the small subset it needs. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I'll happily pay the price of bigger binaries for things such as the %v format. I don't write hello, world that often, or even care about its size when I do. One demo we used to do for Unix was show we could write an executable program that was 2 bytes. It was cute. Did it matter, in the end? Not really. But we used to call 4k programs bloated. I have a hard time worrying about 1M binaries on $200 machines with 12 GB/s memory bandwidth and 4G memory. It's 2013. ron
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
incremental improvement often fails. why does it fail? I don't see why this has to be a rule. a frequently annoying counterexample is when they yet again reinvent the wheel, include a new compatible implementation of all the old features and some new features, all based on some better design - and most of the old bugs are gone, lots of things just work, lots of new stuff even - but lots of stuff that used to work is now bugged also.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
so, assuming demand loading, this is more of a disk space issue rather than a memory issue? It's only an issue on mailing lists and discussion groups. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat Mar 23 15:30:40 EDT 2013, robp...@gmail.com wrote: so, assuming demand loading, this is more of a disk space issue rather than a memory issue? It's only an issue on mailing lists and discussion groups. i was hoping to know if the symbols are used for reflection. - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I have a few programs written, including fs sync tools and a few other things. I guess the largest one might be 10k lines. The language is nice, although binaries are still large. I mentioned hello world because that was the trivial example. I saw the same effect with other real world programs. I admit it might be necessary, but I wouldnt say sizes are comparable. Also, I was reading the discussion andrey mentioned by the time it happened. I guess it didnt reach this list until now because go didnt run on plan 9 until recently. On Mar 23, 2013, at 8:17 PM, Rob Pike robp...@gmail.com wrote: It's pointless to complain about the size of hello world. It's not a real program. In Go's case it's larger than a C binary because the libraries (and the presence of a runtime) are capable of much more under the covers, but by the time you write a real program in Go you'll find the ratio of Go binary to C binary isn't nearly so large; the incremental cost to the binary of a Go source file compared to a C Go file is negligible. A house is much heavier than a tent, but it also has a much stronger foundation. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
For example, looking at what go install does wrt what a few mkfiles would do for the same go source is illustrative of what I'm trying to say. I've never seen a mkfile that builds a transitive dependency graph given only the source code, downloads the relative dependencies from the network, builds all the dependencies, and installs the result. Yes mk could do that, but it would need a lot of help, and that help is not going to materialize. Why use mk when the source code has all the information you need to build the program? I was a big fan of mk, and it (or make, depending) is still used to help bootstrap the Go installation, but honestly I do not miss writing mkfiles one bit. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Yes, they are necessary for reflection. Fmt uses reflection - and uses it well, as rminnich has attested. On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:31 PM, erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net wrote: On Sat Mar 23 15:30:40 EDT 2013, robp...@gmail.com wrote: so, assuming demand loading, this is more of a disk space issue rather than a memory issue? It's only an issue on mailing lists and discussion groups. i was hoping to know if the symbols are used for reflection. - erik
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
If go install is slow on Plan 9, it's because Plan 9's file system is slow (which it is and always has been), and because go install does transitive dependencies correctly, which mk does not. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Mar 23, 2013, at 8:33 PM, Rob Pike robp...@gmail.com wrote: Why use mk when the source code has all the information you need to build the program speed. You have a fast and nice compiler. I only copy a std mkfile to each dir with go source. I dont write them.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I just did a go install, after a clean, of the biggest binary I'm working on, using my pokey old mac laptop. It took 0.9 seconds, most of which was spent in 6l and not the go tool. It could be faster, but it's plenty fast enough. The public won't use mk or make. If you want to succeed in the world, you need to find a more modern way to build software. It's been clear for a long time that that is not a relevant criterion for this community any more, and although it makes me sad I have moved on. I regret responding to this thread, and will move on there, too. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
might be, but I was also thinking on macos x, not just 9. On Mar 23, 2013, at 8:37 PM, Rob Pike robp...@gmail.com wrote: If go install is slow on Plan 9, it's because Plan 9's file system is slow (which it is and always has been), and because go install does transitive dependencies correctly, which mk does not. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 8:23 PM, ron minnich rminn...@gmail.com wrote: I'll happily pay the price of bigger binaries for things such as the %v format. I don't write hello, world that often, or even care about its size when I do. Hello world was just an example, please don't make a straw man out of it. If you want real programs which are bigger that I (we) actually use that will be (much) bigger in go: ls, cp rm mv cat acid, I can go on. Small programs are useful and important. There is a price to pay, and if you get something useful out of it, it may be a fair price to pay, as I said in my other e-mail, I was just stating a fact, binaries are bigger and for example replacing the minimal sets of commands of the system, this can make the minimal system at least 5 times bigger easy. I have a hard time worrying about 1M binaries on $200 machines with 12 GB/s memory bandwidth and 4G memory. It's 2013. A lot of my friends have cheap phones that run out of memory all the time. There is not a one size fits all in engineering, there are compromises and uses. Higher level programming means paying the cost of bigger binaries, that may be ok for some uses and not for others. I like writing go code, it is fun, and has a fairly high level of abstraction while letting you access the system easily (I am looking at you Java). As I said, at least from me, it was not a complaint, just a statement of a fact. I have spent quite some amount of time lately getting go working on arm in Plan 9 because I value the language. G.
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
with mkfiles you can never have something like http://godoc.org. in fact, it would be very difficult to make something like godoc for any other language without major support from the authors or volunteers. what godoc.org does is amazing -- when you type in a query for something that looks like a go package it will attempt to download it and generate the package documentation from the source code on the fly. no interaction from the author or website maintainer need to happen, all is done by the go tool, usually with enough speed that not much waiting is involved. all the package needs to do is abide by a few rules in naming imports. try it for yourself (these packages will surely not be in the index): http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/qcs http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/deco http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/palette http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/rorschach http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/spirograph the stuff that falls out of such a tool is even more impressive. here's an import graph for one of the xscr programs: http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/moire?view=import-graph here's the one for godoc: http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/go/src/cmd/godoc?view=import-graph
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I used noweb, and web before that, long before go was conceived. In fact, I was a huge fan of that. Knuth literate programming was fun. it was tiny compared with godoc tool. Although the go tool is tiny compared with eclipse or even the old code warrior. I like the language, and worked to get it running on our systems. Its nice how the go tool does some of the things it does, although there are other things it does that I prefer to do with other tools. I was just mentioning some facts about it I dont like. On Mar 23, 2013, at 8:58 PM, andrey mirtchovski mirtchov...@gmail.com wrote: with mkfiles you can never have something like http://godoc.org. in fact, it would be very difficult to make something like godoc for any other language without major support from the authors or volunteers. what godoc.org does is amazing -- when you type in a query for something that looks like a go package it will attempt to download it and generate the package documentation from the source code on the fly. no interaction from the author or website maintainer need to happen, all is done by the go tool, usually with enough speed that not much waiting is involved. all the package needs to do is abide by a few rules in naming imports. try it for yourself (these packages will surely not be in the index): http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/qcs http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/deco http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/palette http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/rorschach http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/spirograph the stuff that falls out of such a tool is even more impressive. here's an import graph for one of the xscr programs: http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/goxscr/moire?view=import-graph here's the one for godoc: http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/go/src/cmd/godoc?view=import-graph
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 09:56:19AM +, Steve Simon wrote: I wonder if the new gcc will be written in cfront compatible c++ - that would work... ? I guess the answer is: no, since the compiler has to be C++ 2003 compatible. But I guess too that your mention of cfront was a joke... -- Thierry Laronde tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com http://www.kergis.com/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
Yup Sent from my iPhone On Mar 23, 2013, at 12:17 PM, Rob Pike robp...@gmail.com wrote: It's pointless to complain about the size of hello world. It's not a real program. In Go's case it's larger than a C binary because the libraries (and the presence of a runtime) are capable of much more under the covers, but by the time you write a real program in Go you'll find the ratio of Go binary to C binary isn't nearly so large; the incremental cost to the binary of a Go source file compared to a C Go file is negligible. A house is much heavier than a tent, but it also has a much stronger foundation. -rob
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
If you want real programs which are bigger that I (we) actually use that will be (much) bigger in go: ls, cp rm mv cat acid, I can go on. Small programs are useful and important. here's a representative set. the programs are identical in behaviour and arguments to the Plan 9 set. the size is as reported by du, in kilobytes: 1456 ./date/date 1460 ./cat/cat 1564 ./cleanname/cleanname 1564 ./tee/tee 1736 ./echo/echo 1764 ./cp/cp 1772 ./uniq/uniq 1780 ./cmp/cmp 1780 ./freq/freq 1780 ./wc/wc 1792 ./comm/comm binaries are bigger and for example replacing the minimal sets of commands of the system, this can make the minimal system at least 5 times bigger easy. if that was a real issue you were trying to solve there are things you can do to help yourself. most notably sticking everything in a single binary and invoking the right function based on your argv0. it took me less than 15 minutes to convert the above code to work as a single binary and most of that was in handling clashing flags (it would've been a non-issue if I had used flagsets when writing the original programs). size at the very end: $ date test.txt $ ln -s $GOPATH/bin/all cat $ ln -s $GOPATH/bin/all wc $ ./cat test.txt Sat Mar 23 17:32:42 MDT 2013 $ ./wc test.txt 1 6 29 test.txt $ du -k $GOPATH/bin/all 1888 /Users/andrey/bin/all the size of the original binaries on plan9 is 588k. what was a factor of 30 is now a factor of 3. all tests still pass and it took less time to complete than writing this email. there's an even better solution, but it won't work on plan9 because the go tool is slow there :)
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
I recall one guy at the labs(!) who would ruthlessly avoid printf because it dragged in too much stuff. I think he ran out of people to argue with 30 years ago. On 24 Mar 2013 10:47, andrey mirtchovski mirtchov...@gmail.com wrote: If you want real programs which are bigger that I (we) actually use that will be (much) bigger in go: ls, cp rm mv cat acid, I can go on. Small programs are useful and important. here's a representative set. the programs are identical in behaviour and arguments to the Plan 9 set. the size is as reported by du, in kilobytes: 1456 ./date/date 1460 ./cat/cat 1564 ./cleanname/cleanname 1564 ./tee/tee 1736 ./echo/echo 1764 ./cp/cp 1772 ./uniq/uniq 1780 ./cmp/cmp 1780 ./freq/freq 1780 ./wc/wc 1792 ./comm/comm binaries are bigger and for example replacing the minimal sets of commands of the system, this can make the minimal system at least 5 times bigger easy. if that was a real issue you were trying to solve there are things you can do to help yourself. most notably sticking everything in a single binary and invoking the right function based on your argv0. it took me less than 15 minutes to convert the above code to work as a single binary and most of that was in handling clashing flags (it would've been a non-issue if I had used flagsets when writing the original programs). size at the very end: $ date test.txt $ ln -s $GOPATH/bin/all cat $ ln -s $GOPATH/bin/all wc $ ./cat test.txt Sat Mar 23 17:32:42 MDT 2013 $ ./wc test.txt 1 6 29 test.txt $ du -k $GOPATH/bin/all 1888 /Users/andrey/bin/all the size of the original binaries on plan9 is 588k. what was a factor of 30 is now a factor of 3. all tests still pass and it took less time to complete than writing this email. there's an even better solution, but it won't work on plan9 because the go tool is slow there :)
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 10:15:20AM -0700, Rob Pike wrote: Much of which is symbols. Plus, a a simple computer has gigs of memory. Yes, it's remarkable how much bigger programs are now than they were 20 years ago, but 20 years ago the same things were being said. I understand your objection - I really do - but it's time to face the future. The smart phone in your pocket is roughly 100 times faster than the machine Plan 9 was developed on and has 1000 times the RAM. Computers are incredibly powerful now, and the technologies of today can use that power well (as I claim Go does) or poorly (as some others do), or ignore it at the risk of obsolescence. -rob Ah, yes, the old put more ram in your macbook argument. Some guy bought an iphone, so we should immediately throw away any computers that are not at least iphones. This saves valuable programmer time, because they don't have to optimize things instead of doing important work like providing sixteen SQL libraries. To the future! khm
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:29:36PM -0700, Rob Pike wrote: so, assuming demand loading, this is more of a disk space issue rather than a memory issue? It's only an issue on mailing lists and discussion groups. -rob Also in university campuses and web programming shops, which are the only other two places Go is discussed. khm
Re: [9fans] gcc not an option for Plan9
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 12:43:24PM -0700, Rob Pike wrote: The public won't use mk or make. If you want to succeed in the world, Oh good, is this where we find out we've all been using the wrong version of 'success'? Not everone has your goals. Still. I regret responding to this thread Agreed.
