hehehe

[David Jeske]

On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 08:33:40AM -0800, Tom Novelli wrote:
> ML? I spent a lot of time designing my ideal language.. but I still hadn't
> looked at ML. I had a good feeling about it though. This morning I took a
> look at it, and you know what? It's exactly what I had in mind! Well, not
> exactly, but it's a great starting point. It's simple and easy to
> read. Forget Forth, forget LISP.. I'll write a small ML-like
> compiler/interpreter for my prototype OS.

You should take a look at F<: ... a product of Luca Cardelli's research. 

It has type inference like ML, it has language structure like a typed
scheme (i.e ML), and it has a neat syntax extension mechanism to get
rid of all the parantheses.

http://www.luca.demon.co.uk/
http://www.luca.demon.co.uk/Bibliography.html

Look for "An implementation of F<:"


I might still use ML, but F<: has some cool ideas...


> > As for low level stuff, I don't think it makes sense to work on
> > that anymore with Utah's OSkit finally out.
> 
> There's nothing in OSkit that wasn't already in Linux or BSD. Sure, it's
> helpful when I need example code... But personally, I refuse to use
> something that occupies so much space and requires a Unix system and a C
> compiler to build it. I'm working on a *new* OS, from the ground up. 
> Assembly isn't that hard, really.. another week's work (when I have a week
> to spare) and I'll be on to high-level stuff. Another concern with OSkit:
> I don't think it's very well suited to what we're doing.. it's too Unixy..
> of course, if someone else wants to use it, be my guest. Who am I to
> dictate?

I agree with you, but prefer to think about it a different way. Low
level issues are essentially 'solved'. So why spend time bootstrapping
yet another os? Stick it on top of Linux, or BSD, or OSkit, and after
you prove to yourself that it's going to meet your real goals... then
it's trivial to go in there and do the work to make it host itself.

-- 
David Jeske (N9LCA) + http://www.chat.net/~jeske/ + jeske@chat.net