Reflection

[Pieter Dumon]

> 
> Tril wrote:
> >On Sun, 3 Jan 1999, Anders Petersson wrote:
> 
> [snip: reflective Linux kernel]
> >> All that in the kernel? No way. That rules reflective kernel out.

Yes indeed..


> >Ok.  Then how easy will it be to reflect on the kernel?

Let's just keep to the definition of the word kernel in computer terms:
A kernel is a small basic part of the OS that controls teh basic machine
and provides a virtual machine for you. A kernel is a desgin option. 
IOf you have a real microkernel, you will only need a little "reflection" 
("reflection" is nothing new, it's present in current systems). A small
kernel will only have some settings you can change, but a kernel still
controls the machine and you don't control the kerneol. That's what a
_kernel_ means. If you don't want this, , you don't want a kernel-like
design. Off course it's a good idea to let system software swap kernels or
change some of the kernel behavious. But these systsem processes are still
_controlled_ by the _kernel_. 
 
> >> >> What speaks against is that mOS shows the user the true system
> topology.

It doesn't need to. The design of mOS can do this, but the user can get a
totally different view to! 

> >> Who was speaking about platform-dependence? Maybe the only thing in Tunes
> >> that's platform-independent is that user view? Well, in UniOS the true
> >> system is platform-independent, except for low-level drivers and maybe
> >> binary executables.

?? If we are speaking about platform independence, you can define this on
the source code level, which means only drivers and the lowest-level OS
code (part of the kernel or whatever) are platform-dependent. Or you can
define it on the executable level. All executables that are not written in
some metacode or aare not interpreted (eg Java) are off course
platform-dependent, but they are platfrom-independent on the sourcecode
level. Java-like platform independence is a very good idea for a lot of
software, but you can't make your OS binary platform-indepedent. You can
make it source-code-level platform independent,yes.  


> >information from different views, to understand it.  Changing views is
> >just another way of saying customization.  You in UniOS have the same
> >problem because you say flexibility is your #1 goal!  With all that
> >flexibility, of course the user might get confused.  But that's no reason
> >to leave out flexibility, now is it?  Tools CAN be added to manage
> >flexibility.  

Yes, off course. What's your problem with this flexibility then ?

Pieter


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Pieter.Dumon@rug.ac.be               
                                      
http://studwww.rug.ac.be/~pdumon     
 
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