Udanax ?

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

btanksley@hifn.com wrote:
> That's my opinion as well.  I also believe that the source code is more a
> liability than an asset -- the main thing that's good about the open
> sourcing is the ideas and the patent protection.

The source for the Self 4.0 virtual machine has been available
for four years, now. It is ones of the cleanest pieces of C++
I have seen (I have looked through the sources of a lot of stuff,
including QNX 1.0 and Linux) yet nobody did anything with it.
Not even steal pieces to make a really fast Java!

So I agree with you, though I never considered releasing my
projects without all the sources, even when it was not free.

> > [Xanadu != persistent object storage]
> 
> I'm actually thinking that it might work well as a file system (well, no
> files, but you get the idea).  I suspect -- without proof -- that people
> will be willing to buy more storage space in return for the benefits.  I've
> talked to several casual computer users about some of the use cases I
> envision, and their eyes light up -- I think it's solid.

You mean having people store things over the internet instead of
local disks? My local ISP has just started a similar service.
Given slow modems, I wonder how useful that is?

> Ent is the data structure.  You have to read the code to figure it out.

Ok, I'll download it, then.

> I also found that reading ALL the related pages was almost essential -- for
> example, read all the projects linked to from www.xanadu.co.au.  Examine
> ZigZag and whatever they're calling the version control system today.  IMO,
> none of these systems is interesting in and of themselves (the UI for ZigZag
> is a disaster); but they all help point toward what Xanadu is supposed to
> be, and how it's supposed to do it.

I had tested ZigZag a few weeks ago (it is not in a state that
I would pay $25 for it) and found the ideas interesting. I think
objects would handle what his cells do pretty well, though.

The version control system has a nice naming scheme, but wouldn't
work in a distributed environment.

> If you gain any real understanding, perhaps we should work together to get
> an implementation.  It may not have anything to do with Tunes, but it's
> certainly more useful than doing nothing.

I need something very much like that to store my objects on disk,
so I will certainly work on it. I can live without bidirectional
links and links to ranges of information, but the rest would be
great (including transclusion, which links to ranges allow: the
iAPX 432 allowed this kind of stuff for creating restricted views
on objects, but it would be great to be able to logically insert
new things in objects).

-- Jecel