14 Oct
2011
14 Oct
'11
1:17 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
Then explain why an OS (Windows and MacOS X for example) is so slow and
bloated? I'm not talking about the pretty layers of user interface atop the
OS, but the OS itself. We've had dialog boxes and pull-down menus for
decades, on machines whose memory measured in hundreds of kilobytes and
clock rates in the single-digit MHz. This stuff isn't THAT complex, man!
Miles of abstraction. HALs to take care of multiple file system types,
transparent encryption and compression, continual and intermittent networked
file access, distributed file systems, transparent backup schemes, multiple
ACL schemes, and every unicode page known to man. HALs to handle multiple
display driver types, generic display optimization and computing routines,
encrypted and non-encrypted data paths, and redirecting the whole thing to a
remote desktop. Everything is abstracted, sometimes on multiple levels.
This is the price of flexibility. Either abstract everything or maintain
dozens of kernels for every possible hardware configuration. Neither is
ideal, but abstraction is more maintainable.