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"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." -- Dave Barry
"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." -- Dave Barry
His comment on Slashdot: (Score:1, Interesting)
I think I like this guy. Has anyone here ever had him as a professor? Is he this amusing when he's teaching class?
Little Help? (Score:2, Interesting)
I suppose I should be embarassed I'm not "in the know" with these inside stories on the Slashdot community, but a little sympathy or perhaps the occasional link to everything2.com (anybody remember those days?) would be nice.
You lose. [MODERATORS?] (Score:1, Interesting)
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever else may be said about Prof. Tanenbaum, I learned much of what I know about networking from his excellent text. It should be said that he is excellent at what he does (that is, teaching students about computers).
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm posting this as AC since I'll most likely be modded down for touching a "hero" of the Linux revolution:
It's quite well known that Proff Tanenbaum is somewhat of a prick, very very pleased with himself for having written Minix and fostered the development of Linux. The trouble is that Minix, which was meant to be an academic OS to study, was never good performance-wise (which is normal) and wasn't really good for learning the architecture of an OS either. Minix knew success because it was "this other, free Unix for i386" (and some other architectures like the Atari ST), and people could goof around with it for free.
That's the extent of Tanenbaum's achievenemts. Not that it's negligible, far from it, but somehow Tanenbaum feels entitled to think of himself as a pillar of computer science and computer history, and act accordingly.
Now I shall watch myself be modded down as a troll by Slashdotter who have never met, read about, or listened to him...
Re:Arrogance (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a difference, though it is often colored by the listener's own sense of self confidence.
In the spirit of AST's baseball analogy, I refer you to the immortal words of Dizzy Dean: " It ain't bragging if you can do it."
We should set up better Open Source Marketing (Score:5, Interesting)
On the same note, I doubt that very many in the 'Slashdot-like' internet community need extra convincing to believe that the book is Microsoft-driven, not fact-driven.
Therefore the only effect Tanenbaum (and Slashdot) gets from this document is self-defence and mutual knob-polishery. Not that Tanenbaum is entitled to have his say and defend his honor, but there you go.
What the Slashdot/unix/GNU/whatever community really should consider is how they can truely counter the 'lets convince the stupid masses' policy of Microsoft. (yeah I know I sound elitist, thats because I am..)
Seriously though, the more manager types that don't fall for Microsoft Marketing the better, IMHO. But how? I don't think slashdotting works, but perhaps we should set up a more Market-driven avocacy site for open source. Get The Facts! There are plenty of people out there who would have fun with doing some effective marketing here, and could do more for the community than program another random number generator ;)
One of the things that strikes me most about Microsoft Marketing is that whatever Article (negative or no) I read online about Microsoft, 8 out of 10 times I see a big blinking Microsoft ad! I can't help but be impressed by that, even if I don't like it.
Re:Little Help? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ken Brown is employed by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, a firm that some Slashdotters speculate is in the pay of SCO, MS, or the ilk, and is trying to find criticisms against Linux, recently making the claim that Torvalds did not write Linux, which is probably too open to interpretation. Torvalds wrote Linux to the extent that he typed it, but he did built on prior work, just like everyone else. Even Microsoft originally bought all rights to DOS from a third party and modified and licensed it to IBM for their contract.
(At least, this is what I myself have gleaned from Slashdot. Some detail is probably wrong.)
Re:Changed opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
It kind of reminds me of the performance I get on my sparcstation 5 using SunOS 4.1.3 or OpenBSD versus Solaris 2.x (though I know there's some complex issues there)
Re:Changed opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
Well shame on you. While I've never fully bought into Tanenbaum's arguments on microkernel they have never been antyhing but cogent, coherent and well made.
It is the kind of debate that academics are used to making all the time and AST as the distinguished and brilliant OS professor he is, gave us a good example of.
It seems Linux kiddies weren't mature enough to handle them and asumed malice on AST's part.
Planting the UD in FUD? (Score:4, Interesting)
And who funded that Alexis de Tocqueville Institution report?
Take a guess [wired.com].
W
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I have one of the 15 books he reminded us about the other day, and I remember it for how much it was universally despised.
Re:Round Two (Score:4, Interesting)
-Jem
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever met Tanenbaum? Can you say that somebody is a "prick" just because he is willing to engage in a discussion solely on the basis of technical merits and because he loves one thing and hates another. I'll at least meet the person before debunking him as an egotist.
And Tanenbaum's achievements go beyond Minix. You can find out more if you care to look for his contributions on the web. He doesn't even count Minix as his achievement. The world does not know him for Minix. It was just a nice "add-on" to his operating book.
Have a good day.
I have the PDF of the first 92 pages of the book (Score:5, Interesting)
I only read the first 20 pages or so, then I skipped to the bibliography. In over fifty listings, the only real books he listed were ESR's and they're available online. Every other reference he listed was someone's personal homepage or a newsgroup posting or something arbitrary like that.
There will be an article, ladies and gentlemen. I just haven't decided if it should be a serious analytical debunking of this troll book or a humor piece that shows its rediculousness.
-Jem
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:5, Interesting)
I think, if a professor of mine would write an operating system for me to have me the freedom of goofing around, I would call it a very good source.
And, even if the OS itself was not so good, it doesn't matter, because people often learn the subject from the mistakes, shortcomings. After all, Linus wrote the Linux to improve Minix on Minix.
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:5, Interesting)
Back then (way back in the late '80s), standard assignments were to go "tweak" parts of Minix - make the network interface big- or little-endian, switchable on the fly; change the file system block size and see what happens; screw up the priority system and see if user keypresses even get answered before your applications finish running... as a learning OS, demonstrating ways OSs can be put together, I learned a lot from it.
Then we got into compilers... *sigh*
Comments on microkernels... (Score:2, Interesting)
Amen. I think whatever eventually becomes the Next Big Thing in open source operating systems will be microkernel based, or at least accept the idea that a performance hit like 20% is worth it for a robust setup. (I'm hoping it will be EROS or some variation thereof, but who knows.)
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know Tanenbaum at all; however, his books are more hands on than the standard fare. My OS book didn't come with any usable code at all. Frankly, I had to force code into my class. In fact, my professor (old to the computer industry, but young to academia) was prompted to bring more required labs to the class because of it. I've picked up a few of Tanenbaum's books. In my opinion, it's as good at teaching operating systems as the "dragon" book is on teaching compiler design.
Why is Richard Stevens considered a genius and Tanenbaum not. Humility aside, like I said I never met the guy, most professors are a little bit pompous. As long as he doesn't torture his students with such BS, a little arrogance is fine by me. Including a small copy of a Unix-like variant to be examined with the book was revolutionary by pedagogical standards. I once had a copy of the "Lions Commentary on Unix". While it was interesting, it was written in C and Assembly (with some antiquated instruction set)**. The code was virtually useless for me. Despite popular opinion, I really don't have a PDP-11 in my basement. Tanenbaum's book|code was great. Finally a useful OS I could "play" with. Linux is too large to examine in a classroom. It's an industrial strength OS. Should I learn database theory by mucking with the source code for Oracle or DB2 (if this were even possible)? Of course not. Why should an OS be any different? You only learn by doing. You don't really learn by thinking about psuedocode. In this regard, MINIX fills a hole so desperately apparent in academia. MINIX provides a tangible example of modern OS design.
If you've had this man for a class and can relate a specific instance about his arrogance, feel free to do so. That's a completely different story. However, if you're going to knock the man for having some pride in his work -- well tough. It's not like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Gary Killdall, et al isn't a little bit of a "prick" too.
**I don't remember too much about the specifics of the "Lions Commentary on Unix".
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:2, Interesting)
That's the extent of Tanenbaum's achievenemts. Not that it's negligible, far from it, but somehow Tanenbaum feels entitled to think of himself as a pillar of computer science and computer history, and act accordingly.
Not quite. He's also written a whole pile of books. I had one of them as the textbook for my networking class [amazon.com], and it's the single best textbook I've ever had for a computer class.
Re:Little Help? (Score:3, Interesting)
Many people don't remember that one of Microsoft's first products was a CPM board for the Apple II. The Apple II was 6502 based, but I recall that the CPM board had an 8086 (or similar process from that family) on it.
Re:Microkernel in linux? (Score:4, Interesting)
The only successful true microkernel I know is QNX. And it seems to prove Andy's thesis that microkernels are more stable and secure, because QNX is neutronium-solid [sic]. There are Mach and L4, but they're not full production microkernels.
Re:Round Two (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose the popularity of GNU/Linux, the historic Linus vs. Andy debates, the FUD being brought out by ADTI (and the aforementioned Brown book) all must play a role in getting a "bigger slashdotting".
This report was of core essence to all users (and fans) of GNU/Linux, so one can easily assume a slashdotting of great proportions. It only helps that a person of great respect, prestige, and fame has tarnished the credibility of Brown and boosted the legality of the Linux kernel in the report.
A Professor with words to spare (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd like to mention his books briefly. We use Dr. Tanenbaum's books at our college, and they are excellent. There is no sliding by, chancing on the answers. You are challenged to read and to think, not just read and remember.
Re:I'm with Tannebaum about microkernels (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can spring for boutique hardware it's a really nice system. If you can't, try Darwin. Its claim to fame is being a microkernel-based BSD.
I've had him as a professor (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had him as a professor and he co-advised my Master's thesis.
Indeed, he is as amusing when teaching class. I took one or two classes he taught. However, his lectures are useless because his books speak for themselves. The only real reason to go to his lectures is because he is very funny.
In addition to the lectures, we had to modify the MINIX kernel to do memory fragmentation and modify the file system to support ACLs. Both not very hard, but a good learning experience.
I know he's always on the lookout for graduate students to work with him. Having had him co-advise my Master's thesis, I can wholeheartedly encourage you to work with Prof. Tanenbaum.
The "Linux is obsolete" flamewar (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: microkernels the best approach (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You don't want it... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm the kind of person who has run Minix, ya know. Because it's there. I used to have an Altos box that ran Microsoft Xenix (the System III port, from before SCO) Ancient Unixes are cool. I have an AIX box with Power 1 processor (back when POWER was a bunch of chips.) I have old Sparc boxes. I don't have a PDP-11 yet, tho. I ordered the CSRG Archives CD set [mckusick.com] direct from Kirk McKusick, though, for if and when I do.
And yes, I use NetBSD on anything that has a public face on the Net.
Where's your A Game, Microsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)
(1) Since when does "Alexis de Tocqueville Institute" sound like an IT consulting group that anyone would want to pay attention to? Check out their website; it's a political think tank (which is what I would expect from the de Tocqueville moniker).
(2) "Linus didn't write Linux"
(3) If you're gonna write an attack book, how about reading the existing books first, so that the people you talk to don't point your ignorance in public.
Can you imagine us Penguinistas trying this kind of weak shit on Microsoft? "Hey, Boss! I've got a study from the Henry David Thoreau Institute! Bill Gates didn't actually write MS-DOS, he bought it from Tim Paterson, so we better not run anything from Microsoft. Besides, Windows crashes all the time
Microsoft says that Linux is their #1 or #2 competitor. I expect a helluva lot stronger attack from Microsoft than this!
My theory is that Microsoft uses AdTI to float many different trial balloons. They'll keep the ones that look good and dump the stinkers. This one's a stinker.
Re:Little Help? (Score:2, Interesting)
With various progress reports cross-posted into other newsgroups like comp.os.coherent to mixed reception as I recall. :) (Note that the Google archives seem pretty spotty for that period.)
Re:Let's not split hairs... (Score:1, Interesting)
The fully abstracted interface that a ukernel requires is right up there with the seperate address spaces as cited benefits of going with a ukernel. However, while seperate address spaces can easily have a minimum 20% perf hit, a well-designed interface can and often is, the most efficient way to get the job done. So, linux has the good, "free" parts of a ukernel while skipping the "good" and expensive parts.
If you didn't want to split hares, why does your rabbit have a weapon?
And furthermore, if you skip the anime reference and pronounce your username like a Jamaican would, you would be very rasta. I-an-I-me! Lion in Zion. Hail Salesea! No I'm not smoking the weed right now either.
Why is ADTI's (and MS's) FUD so obvious? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is this FUD so easy to debunk while similar FUD in other domains, particularly politics, is so much harder to really get a firm handle on? Is it because the people who care about politics are a much broader cross-section of society and thus the average level of domain-knowledge and general intelligence is significantly lower? Or is it because there are more players all with their own sets of agendas and (self)interests? Or maybe I'm just been brainwashed by the slashdot collective group-think into seeing MS behind every corner when they really aren't (although the trail seems sooo absurdly blatant most of the time that I just can't believe that I'm brainwashed like that).
I dunno, it just struck me how easy life would be if the rest of the FUD in the world were as transparent as MS's.
Success and antiquated technology go together (Score:4, Interesting)
I would characterize Tanenbaum's opinion as Linux is using antiquated technology and that performance benefits do not warrant the additional complexity. Tanenbaum may very well be correct. The fact that Linux is successful and likely to become the defacto Unix implementation is not evidence that Tanenbaum was wrong. Antiquated technology and market success are not mutually exclusive. I offer ix86 and Alpha as an example. If Tanenbaum is correct all this meant was that Linus and other developers had to work a little longer and a littler harder to achieve reliability and security. Tanenbaum didn't think the performance gain was worth the time, Linus did.
OS X is NOT a microkernel (Score:3, Interesting)
According to your link, the filesystem, networking, and complete I/O all run within the kernel. In a true microkernel, the filesystem and networking, as well as, concievably (but not necessarily) a portion of the I/O code, would each run as a user-space server process, handling calls for each service through the microkernel. The only thing the microkernel really has to do in such a system is arbitrate calls between client processes and server processes and handle the actual mechanics of I/O.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong. But I've also got AST's book Modern Operating Systems in front of me (just started reading it, though). ``The picture painted above of a kernel that handles only the transport of messages from clients to servers and back is not completely realistic. Some operating system functions (such as loading commands into the physical I/O device registers) are difficult, if not impossible, to do from user-space programs.'' Nonetheless, the kernel should do little more than this; while OS X may indeed take a microkernel approach to design--this I don't know--it has not followed through in implementation.
OS X might be called a hybrid; it has the microkernel messaging, but doesn't really use it. Check out kernelthread [kernelthread.com] for some neat info.
One point has come out in this debacle (Score:1, Interesting)
It just isn't that hard to write an Operating System. In his original notes about the "Brown Book" Professor Tanenbaum gave several examples of single people or small groups who had done just that. Several of those examples went on to become commercial successes. Note that the thrust of Brown's original questions to Professor Tanenbaum were on the order of "one man couldn't possibly write an OS, so Linus must have stolen code to do so himself" (my paraphrase). Part of Professor Tanenbaum's rebuttal was the examples that he mentioned plus his own experience repeated in this article: It took me three years to write MINIX, but I was only working at it only in the evenings, and I also wrote 400 pages of text describing the code in that time period (also in the evenings).
Now compare this to SCO's original suit against IBM (or maybe it was one of the never-ending changes to their suit after it went to court, I've lost track) where they claimed that IBM must have contributed code to Linux because it was just inconceivable that Linux could have grown to enterprise computing power class (SMP et al) without code written by a large company, in this case, SCO code stolen by IBM.
We are being set up to believe that only large companies with armies of programmers can write quality code that can be used in business. Bullcrap!
Re:The "Linux is obsolete" flamewar (Score:4, Interesting)
As it happened, HURD ended up sucking, and so Linux remained the default.
I think the thing that set Linus off was more the fact that Linux was being insulted (probably Prof. Tanenbaum was feeling a bit cranky that day or something, and Linus was in a fighting mood...)
It's funny how emails waaay back then, from when Linus was still a pretty small fry guy, can come back to haunt the people involved.
It's something to think about before posting to a mailing list: If I get really famous ten years from now, is this going to cause me or someone I respect hurt?
Re:Okay. (Score:2, Interesting)
As a european I'm flattered that you think that Tannebaum is one too, but he's really an american working at a european university. The textbook you refer to, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, is an excellent introduction to operating systems and the second edition is from 1997. It is an important book for us linux geeks, as it is the book that inspired Linus to write his own operating system.
Re:His comment on Slashdot: (Score:3, Interesting)
Damn! Me and my friends have all been sure that you've had one in there for *years*.
well tough. It's not like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Gary Killdall, et al isn't a little bit of a "prick" too.
Jobs is an arrogant guy that didn't do the amazing engineering work that he gets credit for ("The Mac kicks ass so Steve Jobs kicks ass" is very faulty logic.) Maybe he's a good organizer, but he's also the source of a lot of the decisions that I feel hurt the Mac, including deliberately limiting expandability and the single button mouse. AFAICT, Jobs' main notable talent is his ability for marketing himself and associating himself with every good thing that's been achieved by all the engineers working on the Mac.
Re:Article text (Score:2, Interesting)
Not wanting to be offtopic, this illustrates for me the academic view on the world vs. the real view on the world. AFAIK a moderately powerful SUN server with Apache should be able te handle 150K hits a minute when requesting a static page.
Re:Little Help? (Score:3, Interesting)
I would have said more like those so-called professional historians, and the guy who allegedly perfected the Gas Chamber and the Electric Chair, who visited Auschwitz, saw with their own eyes, and then denied that the Holocaust ever happened. BTW I am not Jewish, I have no axe to grind, but well-established facts with overwhelming eyewitness and photographic evedence are exactly what they seem, the contrary opinion is highly offensive lies and deception.
They make me sick, the way they twist facts. I saw Mr. Electric Chair (no doubt /.ers will fill in the name) on TV taking a sample from the surface of the brickwork, which he sent to a lab, to test for Zyklon B, of which there of course was no trace. A gas would not be retained for minutes, far less over 50 years, yet his actions, and his self-confessed expertise in the field of so-called humane executions, might have given credibility to his claims to anyone without a proper scientific education.
Yet vile scum like that are believed by fanatics, and even apparently sensible people. I call him scum by the way, because both of the methods of execution in which he is allegedly an expert are in fact death by slow, agonising torture, yet some state legislatures, on his advice, believe that the electric chair is humane.
Fortunately human life does not figure in Brown's rantings, at least not on this occasion, but who knows what other vile and dangerous lies he may be capable of propagating.
Funnily enough, Mr. Electric Chair clearly had no competence in technical matters either, just like Brown.
People like that are a danger to society and should be locked up. I hope that Brown is the subject of so much legal action ,when his book is published, that he is never listended to again, by anyone, anywhere.
I wonder about his politics, is he a Fascist like these other guys, or just a Bill-worshipper? Or is it the great god Mammon, meaning he has no principles at all, except to get rich quick?