Can an Operating System be written un C-unlike programming language

[Lee Salzman]

It really is dirt simple to write an operating system in Slate. I've written
a few operating systems in C, and I must say, if anything, it is far more
difficult to write them in C than it is in a much more expressive language.

Everyone seems to worry about a few little interrupt stubs and bootloaders,
but for those parts you just use some assembly (which is still even then 
written
from within Slate since it has it's own compilation toolchain). This is 
only an
extremely small part of the bulk you find in operating systems - again, 
I emphasize,
extremely small.

But okay, after you get past the interrupt stubs and the bootloader, 
what then?
You have a huge mass of code that requires as good and expressive a language
as any out there to really do right.

So it's not an issue of whether Slate is good enough to make an OS, only 
an issue
of when Slate is complete enough to be self-hosting.

Lee

Pupeno wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Continuing with the C debate, I have this question I want to pop in. I don't 
>have much experience about developing Operating Systems, but I've read some 
>of Operating Systems: Design and implementation. And some about Linux and 
>whenever I look at an OS, it is a small piece of assembly (as small as 
>possible) that prepares an environment where C compiled code can run. That C 
>code relays heavily on the use of pointers and memory manipulation.
>So, can an Operating System be written in a C-unlike programming language, 
>like Slate ? If so, how would it look like ? I mean, a piece of asm to 
>prepare an environment for C that prepares an environment for Slate, or is it 
>possible to jump directly from asm to Slate ?
>I'm not among those that say: "one language for each task" because I suffered 
>from the fact that: "the web-application is built in PHP because it's good 
>for that, the log analyzer in Perl because it's good for that, the inner 
>loops in C because it's good for that and the desktop GUI in C++ and some 
>toolkit because it's good for that. Now, we don't have a clue of how to put 
>everything together and we are doomed".
>So, how much of an OS can be written in a language like Slate ?
>(I'm not asking what you want to do, I'm not starting a flamewar, I just want 
>to know).
>Thank you.
>- -- 
>Pupeno: pupeno at pupeno.com - http://pupeno.com
>Reading Science Fiction ? http://sfreaders.com.ar
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
>
>iD8DBQFCgmGlfW48a9PWGkURAl2HAJ9754sX98pBTEqkx/g8JjGf+kt2zwCgjmLJ
>/ifaHxsSg1iDxBMbzphHr+o=
>=XsL+
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
>  
>