I was just starting to write such an OS myself.
-----Original Message-----
From: Grant Miner
[mailto:mine0057@mrs.umn.edu]
Sent: ו 12/09/2003 00:12
To: PLT Scheme discussion list
Cc: Scsh Mailing List
Subject: [plt-scheme] Interested in a Scheme-based Operating
System?
For list-related administrative tasks:
http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
Would
anyone be interested in creating a free operating system based
exclusively
on programs written in scheme (low level stuff still in
C/assembler of
course), and that combines the best features of Plan 9,
BeOS, Linux, and
mac/windows? Would you like to have a potentially
widley-used OS that
showcases the power of functional languages? Would
you like an OS
where scheme is the preferred programming language?
This is my
vision. Scheme and plt-scheme are excellent languages
because they're
functional, have continuations, macros, tail calls, and
an excellent module
system. I probably don't need to explain scheme's
merits here
;)
Imagine having scheme as _the_ high-level programming language for
an
operating system. All libraries would be usable from scheme,
instead of
some you can use from Python and others you can use from
Perl. Ideally,
only software written in scheme/c would be included in
the distribution,
so that we have tight integration, its easy to pick up
different
projects, the system and libraries are kept small, and people
are
encouraged to use scheme. (Nobody prevents you from installing
other
programming tools and languages, of course. But we ensure that
there
are always bindings for the schemes.)
I often hear the phrase
"use the right tool for the job." Usually what
that means is there is
a excellent library usable from a certain
programming language, and it's
faster to learn the new language and
library than port the library to your
programming language. After using
C++ and Java, Python, Perl and
friends, I've concluded that these
languages lack much of the power of
scheme. 99% of the time, the right
tool for the job would be lisp, if
it were easy to use the others'
libraries.
If you like the sound of
an experimental Linux distribution,
incorporating the filing features of
Plan 9 and BeOS (I think using
Linux kernel would be good, for
compatibility with a wide range of
hardware, Reiser4, and other features.),
based on PLT-Scheme and scsh,
and easy to configure, reply to the thread,
and we can get a mailing
list/wiki
going.