[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: <snip>
Utility computing is perfectly fine as long as it is balanced by original development, but it is poisonous if it preclueds any original participation. Open Source is one form of rebellion, but it lacks the robust foundations of sound program development. Plan 9 is a much smaller, better designed approach. I'm sure we won't see Plan 9
O yeahhh umm yeah like r u 3l3t3? Err uh yeah or is it 1337?
contenders and I'm sorry to see that happening, but that is the nature of the beast. Had Plan 9 caught the imagination of the "masses", it would have grown the same tumors as Linux, and that would have defeated its nature. Think Pascal: it is hardly the language of choice today, but the principles it enshrines have totally altered the programming language landscape. C is the utility version, and C++ and Java its obvious
Surrrrre uhhh yeah whatever you say.... Or was it Algol?
offsprings. Alef has been abandoned and Limbo remains a very specialised language, but they will also leave their mark.
So does a dog pissing on a fire hydrant.
So, I think this dicussion is based on a premise whose value is purely emotional: we'd all be more comfortable if Plan 9 was widely accepted, but there is no intellectual reason for it to be so. Rob Pike says the same thing in a nutshell, but in reality it is the philosophy behind Plan 9 that needs spreading: careful design, generalised objects, simplicity rather than bulk, etc. Not Rio or Acme, Fossil or Venti, but the environment in which they can thrive. The environment in which Mozilla is difficult to create so that simpler solutions can be sought.
Mozilla didn't create the web. The web created Mozilla.
