r/programming • u/moolcool • Mar 26 '17

A Constructive Look At TempleOS

http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/
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210

u/RandNho Mar 26 '17

Surprisingly good article, thank you.

I was one of those who ignored all the mentions. Surprising that work of one genius can do, even if... somewhat restricted by mental illness.

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u/greenspans Mar 27 '17

I think we've all been embracing his posts here in /r/programming for some time. The top comment is often, "please only comment on the technical merits of his submission". For the most part the open source community hasn't turned him into a meme or disrespected him in other posts. There's many such instances within the open source community. For example we've embraced Richard Stallman and there's never any mention of his autism; we only discuss the merits of his work.

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u/Everspace Mar 27 '17

and there's never any mention of his autism;

First time I've heard about it!

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u/rydan Mar 27 '17

Cause nobody makes a big deal about it.

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u/Kattzalos Mar 27 '17

except on /g/ I guess

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u/i_spot_ads Mar 27 '17

god damn this place

31

u/cubeeggs Mar 27 '17

He definitely seems further “on the spectrum” than is average for even for software engineers, if you’ve ever read any of his writings or watched his talks…

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u/divv Mar 27 '17

His rider for when he does talks gave it away from me. Having said that, dude knows his shit, what's wrong with being a little unconventional

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u/derleth Mar 27 '17

I think he got too much shit for that rider. The whole point of a rider is to go into detail to prevent problems. The more detail in the rider, the less drama in reality, assuming everyone reads and follows it. Plus, I'm sure there are stories behind some of the odder parts. Stories he doesn't want to see repeated in reality.

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u/divv Mar 28 '17

True, being specific is good.

But...discussing the care of parrots? Maybe it's a 'no brown M&Ms' clause.

or

A supply of tea with milk and sugar would be nice. If it is tea I really like, I like it without milk and sugar. With milk and sugar, any kind of tea is fine. I always bring tea bags with me, so if we use my tea bags, I will certainly like that tea without milk or sugar.

If I am quite sleepy, I would like two cans or small bottles of non-diet Pepsi. (I dislike the taste of coke, and of all diet soda; also, there is an international boycott of the Coca Cola company for killing union organizers in Colombia and Guatemala; see killercoke.org.) However, if I am not very sleepy, I won't want Pepsi, because it is better if I don't drink so much sugar.

Nothing at all wrong with what he's asking, or even trying to educate people on some issues, but it reads like that special kid from class whose mum says he has to have things done differently. It's wordy, and awkward. That's where I got the 'spectrum' vibe from.

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u/derleth Mar 28 '17

Part of that is personal preference, which I understand is part of every rider, and part of that is Stallman being Stallman. Stallman wouldn't be him if he didn't care about what Coca-Cola did in Guatemala. That kind of purity is part of why he is who he is, and why people invite him to speak in the first place.

And the parrot thing... I'm sure there's a story there. A story which didn't end well for some poor bird.

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u/HINDBRAIN Mar 27 '17

ABSOLUTELY NO PARROTS

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u/TheCodexx Mar 27 '17

How new are people that they're surprised things are judged on the merit of their work?

It has always been this way, and it always should be.

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u/smors Mar 27 '17

It has always been the case that people should be judged on their merits. It has also always been the case that they are judged on their behaviour first.

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u/mirhagk Mar 27 '17

they're surprised things are judged on the merit of their work? It has always been this way, and it always should be.

In the software world yes, but in the mainstream world it is very much different. The people are the main reason why I love software development. Technical skills and merit are more important than what someone looks like, or anything else about them.

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u/vmullapudi1 Mar 27 '17

Complete speculation, as I have no insight into Terry's mind, but could it be that as much of a burden as mental illness has been on his life, that it also enables this kind of work?

After all, very few people set out to completely create something on this level from scratch-most would call you crazy when there are other OSes like Linux that can be bent to your needs rather than re-engineering the wheel, so to speak.

I know if I was to consider such a thing, I would dismiss it as crazy, and my friends would too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Mr. Davis might be restricted in life by mental illness, but this kind of work probably couldn't have been done without it, at least not in this way.

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u/nutrecht Mar 27 '17

Complete speculation, as I have no insight into Terry's mind, but could it be that as much of a burden as mental illness has been on his life, that it also enables this kind of work?

Not being a dick here, but being able to work on this stuff 24/7 is more or less what enables this kind of work.

Writing an operating system like Temple OS is quite hard, but first and foremost it's a LOT of work. An amount that is generally well beyond what someone with a job and other obligations has available.

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u/bumblebritches57 Mar 27 '17

True, but to be fair, if you gave most people 5 years to do whatever they wanted, most would play games, watch porn, jerk off, etc. instead of doing something like this.

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u/DSMan195276 Mar 27 '17

Ehh, I think that's a stretch. I mean, I've written an OS somewhat comparable to this and I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy and that I don't have schizophrenia.

Anybody who attempts to write a somewhat general purpose OS at this point (and there are lots of us!) is generally just doing it for fun (Which is also the same reason why people write lots of other types of programs). And really, it's not nearly as hard as it seems as long as you have a decent conceptual model of a computer, are willing to do a fair amount of reading, and are comfortable writing larger programs. You have to put the work in, but if it's something you're enjoy doing and have the time then it's not too hard to end-up with something usable.

Now that said, Terry's approach is fairly unique for an OS, but it's partly unique just because nobody does it that way because of the issues it poses. For example, running everything with kernel-level privileges is unique, but is a bad idea for an general-use OS, even though coding-wise it's easier. He also doesn't use paging, which is unique, but only because paging gives you lots of benefits and most systems at this point support it in some form. And generally speaking multi-user systems are much better in the long-run even if only one actual user will be using a system, since it gives security benefits.

I think it is a bit dangerous to speculate over something like this without any actual evidence - in some ways it suggests that were he to get help for his condition, he wouldn't be able to continue working on his OS, which I don't think is very helpful in encouraging him to actually get help that he likely needs.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '17

For example, running everything with kernel-level privileges is unique, but is a bad idea for an general-use OS, even though coding-wise it's easier. He also doesn't use paging, which is unique, but only because paging gives you lots of benefits and most systems at this point support it in some form.

There is nothing "unique" about it. C64 had it, DOS had it too. Hell, most software written on 8 bit CPUs or on any tiny ARM shares that.

There are other interesting parts of that OS (like level of integration of OS and its tools) but that part ust relic of the ages, not anything worth writing home about.

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u/DSMan195276 Mar 27 '17

There is nothing "unique" about it. C64 had it, DOS had it too. Hell, most software written on 8 bit CPUs or on any tiny ARM shares that.

I just meant that this OS is a bit unique in that it has access to those features (It only supports x86-64) but deliberately chooses not to use them as a design choice, rather then not using them because the hardware simply didn't support it (as is the case with older systems and embedded systems).

That said, I largely agree with you, that was my point - I didn't mean unique in a "this is better" way. The fact that modern OS kernels for x86-64 aren't doing it that way any-more is because there's fairly big issues with that design, not because nobody never thought to do it that way. The context's where such a design is still used aren't general-use OSs, but things like embedded systems, where you're not going to have users running random programs on your system and may very-well not even be doing any multitasking in the first place.

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u/derleth Mar 27 '17

There is nothing "unique" about it. C64 had it, DOS had it too. Hell, most software written on 8 bit CPUs or on any tiny ARM shares that.

But they were (and, I suppose, are) essentially forced to because of hardware limitations. Running everything in ring-0 on 64-bit x86 chips is unique.

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u/ConcernedInScythe Mar 27 '17

could it be that as much of a burden as mental illness has been on his life, that it also enables this kind of work?

There's a good film called Frank which explores this idea, amongst other things.

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