Re: [Haskell-cafe] OS design & FP aesthetics

On 6/18/07, Creighton Hogg wrote:

On 6/18/07, Andrew Coppin wrote:

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Creighton Hogg wrote:

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There are lots of things to like about Linux. It doesn't cost

money.

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It's fast. It's reliable. It's flexible. It's secure.

Okay, I'm not sure if I'd agree with the reliable & secure points. I mean, relative to what could be done. I'm a rank amateur when it comes to OS work but when I've looked at recent papers Linux really isn't that cutting edge. I mean, it may be reliable in comparison to Windows 98 & has less known exploits than any Windows system, but in terms of how good it *could* be I think there's an awful lot of room for growth.

Isn't there a lot of room for improvement in *any* product?

Well, I'm not just talking about improvement. I'm talking about things like capabilities, self-healing kernels, separation kernels, exo kernels, things that may have serious advantages but can't necessarily be strapped on to a preexisting kernel such as Linux.

Bah. Of course after I say this I get a bad feeling, so I checked the interwebs and found out that there has been work on incorporating self-healing into Linux.