A New Kind of OS

trader writes "OSWeekly.com discusses a possibility of futuristic OSes with both negatives and positives. From the article: 'Imagine if you will, a world where your ideas and perhaps, even your own creative works became part of the OS of tomorrow. Consider the obvious advantages to an operating system that actually morphed and adapted to the needs of the users instead of the other way around. Not only is there no such OS like this, the very idea goes against much of what we are currently seeing in the current OS options in the market.'"

Comments

It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux

[ackthpt]

Consider the obvious advantages to an operating system that actually morphed and adapted to the needs of the users instead of the other way around. Not only is there no such OS like this, the very idea goes against much of what we are currently seeing in the current OS options in the market.

I don't know about the parent, but when I build a kernel I don't just default to everything. I build for what I'll need. If that changes significantly then I'll do another with different options and settings.

While it may seem novel to "morph" to what's currently needed, it's not really so revolutionary an idea. It once was that operating systems cleared out unused libraries from memory (rather unlike the way Windows behaves, by loading 385 MB of junk you just might need during a session) and dynamically adjust the amount of processor priority and time (Priority and Run Burst) each task is assigned as needed depending upon system load, etc. Some things appear to have gone backward as we've got more dependent on ooh, shiny! features, whistles and bells.

Maybe like NASA digging up how they once did the Apollo Moon missions, to relearn, it's time for some of the people who do operating systems today to look back at how we did things 20-30 years ago.

Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux

[Fordiman]

"It looks like you're trying to write a slashdot post..."

Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux

[Dhalka226]

I presume the "Read the article" option would be permanently grayed out?

Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux

[Sinryc]

See? It needs to be made easier?

Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux

[radarsat1]

Normal people can't do that. I can't program worth shit, and I don't even know how to mess with the Kernal. They mean an OS that changes with you, without you having to do it with coding. If Linux could do that, it would be MUCH better.

You know, as a programmer, I get really tired of people suggesting ways to program computers "without doing any coding". That's where BAD things come from. That's where "dynamically hiding menu items" come from, so you never know where things are. That's where "visual programming" comes from, so you're staring at a screen full of boxes and lines with little to no organizational structure.

No. If you're gonna program a computer, learn how to program. The CS field as a whole apologizes for the fact that computers are hard. They are complex machines. Unfortunately it is not always easy to get them to work they way they should, or the way you want them to. But that's life. If you're not willing to learn how to program, you should be willing to learn how to use what other people have programmed, or learn how to write specs and make intelligent suggestions to the community. But this bullshit about "intelligently adapting the OS to a user's needs" is just asking for trouble. It's asking for "programming" without actually asking for any "design" or "specifications". It will end up being crap.

The fact is, making something "user friendly" means making the front-end more simple -- and thus making the back-end more complicated. But this complexity always eventually compounds and compounds until the end user can't understand what's happening and gets confused. In the end, we learn that computers are easier to use if you understand the back-end, and that can only happen if you use a minimum of metaphor. That is-- a straight-forward system that is obvious and transparent.

The mistake that Windows and many GUI systems have made is in trying to HIDE the system in metaphor. It always backfires, because although a transparent system may be harder to learn, it is far, far easier to deal with once the learning curve has been climbed. And since we've discovered that even the simplest metaphoric GUI requires "training", well.. you may as well train the end user how it actually WORKS instead of trying to hide it from them in a bubble of "interface".

Of course, that's just MHO. Though I believe Neal Stephenson agrees with me.

(My apologies to the parent. My comments aren't really directed at you, per se, I just get tired of people suggesting that computer programming should be effortless. Computer using should be easy, but programming is programming, if you know what I mean.)

Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux

[ScuzzMonkey]

I don't disagree with you entirely, but you can certainly understand that the line between using and programming has become blurred over the years, and not always with such negative outcomes. After all, in the beginning, everything was programming. Your argument could have been applied to someone just wanting a simple word processor back in the punch-card and teletype days.

Things have obviously changed quite a bit; you don't have to be a programmer to get WYSIWYG editing and print output anymore. It may not seem like it from here, but there are probably a lot of functions that most people consider "programming" that will fall into the same category at some unspecified point in the future. All that programming does is simply interface with the machine at a slightly more complex level than the average user. We're just talking about improving the interface to the point where some things, which now require "programming", will simply be "using" instead... and programmers will move on to more complicated arenas.

Macros or mail filters or Netflix's recommendation system are all ways that average users basically program computers today without any hardcore CS education. Ten or twenty years ago, they would have required such a background to accomplish the same tasks, but no one really considers it "programming" today; there is no reason that many other functions that we currently think of as programming won't become similarly easy or transparent.

There will always be the wizards responsible for writing the code that puts those things into place, and so that's where I agree with you--if you want to be a coder, go learn to code. In that sense, programming will always be programming, but I think the common definition of the word is a necessarily moving target.

Where's the beef?

[AKAImBatman]

Must be a slow news day. I read through the entire article and I didn't find anything substantial. He spends 6 paragraphs on the first "page" explaining how cool (and "weird") it would be to attach adaptive intelligence to our workflow. (His example is, what if the computer knew when NOT to bother you with email?)

He then goes on for another 5 paragraphs just to tell us that Evil Corporations(TM) could misuse the data about our personal preferences against us. (Shocker, isn't it?) So we might as well forget the whole idea, because the Bad Guys(TM) have it in for us.

*Sigh*

I suppose I could plug my own Linux Desktop Distribution of the Future article to fill space and provide something substantive, but then I'd be accused of shameless self-promotion. So instead, I'm going to bed. 'Night all! :)

Tedious...

[applix7]

The OS is just a hardware multiplexer. Anything above that level is called an application.

Imagine...

[Venik]

...an operating system that actually morphed and adapted to the needs of the users...

Users? Aren't those the guys who always need their passwords reset and profiles restored? It already morphed and adapted and became Windows. We have only ourselves to blame. In Soviet Russia OS does not adapt to users; users adapt to... Oh, wait.

What hogwash

[ClosedSource]

A CLI is no more "the system" than a GUI, it's just another abstraction. Most black-and-white movies were made that way because it was the best that could be done, not because the filmmaker thought it was more artistic. In a like manner, most OS's of the 70's used a CLI not because it was a "minimum metaphor", but because it was the only practical option at the time.

My OS will learn from past mistakes

[Jacer]

User, From your usage history, it seems to me that you like bloated software, spyware, torjans, viruses, worms, and other malware. I've take the liberty of installing all of these with the latest features. I've also removed all productivity software, as my records indicate you were failing out of school anyway. Regards, Your new-age OS.

Here's How That Works

[Greyfox]

First you find a person who can program the computer. You tell him what you want in English and give him a bucket of cash. Then you cross your fingers and hope that he was worth a bucket of cash. He goes off and writes a program based on what you told him. If neither you nor he were on crack at the time, you might get a system that approximates what you wanted it to do. You then use what he made for you to make two buckets of cash, at which point you can get two more programmers to make a computer do something else that you want it to. It's a very user friendly system, really...