Post by @niconiconi@mk.absturztau.be

Systems programming be like:

The application needs an infrastructure, runtime, or protocol.
Programmer designs an elaborate general-purpose RPC, server, or runtime environment.
Software architect: This is just the beginning.
Industry trends changed.
The application becomes the only customer of that infrastructure.
Why does the kernel have its own RPC server for accessing application APIs? Why is the unexposed internal module the only active-maintained server in the world? If it's so useful, why can't I even call it for my app?

0 Boosts

0 Likes

Systems programming be like:

The system (hardware, software, or application) needs flexibility.
Designers defined a set of minimalist primitives to meet the original requirements. "Keep the possibilities open, but don't overengineer it."
System succeeded, usage greatly expanded.
System needs to meet new requirements, but the baseline is fixed.
Developers start inventing many Rube Goldberg machines for the simplest operations. Want to control temperature? Use an opamp to fake an error signal to a voltage regulator chip. Branch predication? Generate a mask of 255 from the carry flag by subtracting a register from itself. Want a state machine? Chain a series of DMA to the DMA registers themselves. No conditional operators? Create a command called "[" that terminates its arguments with "]". Commit files in a single transaction? Rename a symlink to the target. No tagged pointers? Encode bitflags in NaN. Downgrade protection? Ask the client to always send a fake protocol called "no-downgrade" that the server must reject.