11.3 Resource allocation

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

> I'm not quite certain why everyone is so pro-stack around here.
Hey ! I'm not *that* pro-stack.
The OS should allow *native* (i.e. without using a virtualized flat space)
implementations of stackless languages (like LISP, Scheme, and other
continuation passing or higher-order functional languages).
We'll need to have heaps anyway. And GC too.

Let the OS provide some native implementations of things (those
that need coordination), and then languages must use them (and possibly
virtualize their own model over it), with constructors from a standard
(or less standard) library.

> Whichever way we do go, stacks, heaps, or whatever, I would hope that it
> would be somewhat recursive, so we could have stacks within stacks, or heaps
> within heaps.
I think this kind of recursivity (i.e. always be able to virtualize the
system, not having a monolithic system organization) is *essential*.
That's precisely what lacks completely in nowadays' systems a la Unix.
Having a microkernel for Unix is useless to the user, because Unix is used
as a huge monolithic system anyway. I'm really for a no-kernel concept.
There are (atomic) device drivers, and (recursive) (de)constructors that
transforms things. The system is founded i.e. any actual operation is
ultimately done through the device drivers; but else it's perfectly free,
without any kind of arbitrary, unadaptable, administration.

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