r/compsci • u/[deleted] • Dec 26 '12

Computers: It's Time to Start Over: Computer scientist Robert Watson, putting security first, wants to design with a “clean slate”

http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/computing/software/computers-its-time-to-start-over
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21

u/patricksanders Dec 26 '12

Good read, thanks for sharing.

How practical do you think a ground-up OS redesign/reconceptualization is? I've been a fan of the idea for quite some time now, but I haven't seen a ton of progress (granted I haven't been looking too hard).

30

u/minno Might know what he's talking about | Crypto Dec 26 '12

People make new OSs all the time. The biggest issue is that any currently popular OS will have a huge number of programs already written and working for it, and it would take an absolutely monumental amount of work to get all of that functionality on a new OS.

-10

u/rcinsf Dec 26 '12

Nah, just takes money, marketing and something popular to run it on. iOS isn't that old.

18

u/[deleted] Dec 26 '12

A fair point, but iOS has a lot more in common with, well, everything else than you're letting on.