OSDev.org

Right now, the compdev.net seems to be stillborn; there is little if any traffic, few people are aware of the site, and the primary moderator, Bencz, cannot be reached, meaning the wiki is essentially locked out. It seems that the site was launched prematurely.

I propose that the OS-Dev site temporarily host a sub-forum for compiler development in order to building a critical mass of active users, with the intention that the compdev site be re-launched after enough traffic has been established to warrant a full site. A section of the wiki would be allocated to the compiler dev users, and either a single compiler sub-forum, or a forum section with perhaps two or three sub-forums at most, would be set up here for a period of, say, one year. If in that time enough regular traffic and enough wiki activity has taken place to justify a full site, we can re-launch compdev.net (with at least two admins to avoid the lock-out issue) and transfer the existing material to there to establish the site's critical mass.

Comments and criticisms welcome.

I believe the temporary subforum is the most sensible way to build a community (if it has acceptance). I originally inquired about a compiler / language development community in order to check out the differences between how my team and I built a compiler and other people's compilers.
I have some knowledge about compilers but nothing about the traditional tools (lex, yacc). Our front end compiler was built using ANTLR3 and outputs LLVM IR. That being said, I can volunteer my time writing wikis for ANTLR and LLVM IR / LLVM.

If you want to check it out : https://github.com/artemcm/DashAB-Compiler-Front-End

It is a compiler for a subset of Dash, a language still in development (and we didn't have time to implement matrices, just vectors)

As a side note, I feel like a year is an adequate amount of time to make a decision on whether there is a critical mass or not.

Edit: Also, since I am a new member, there doesn't seem to be a lot of votes, and this concerns your community : I do not want to bias the poll into one direction or another. Therefore I just voted undecided.

efferifick wrote:Also, since I am a new member, there doesn't seem to be a lot of votes, and this concerns your community : I do not want to bias the poll into one direction or another. Therefore I just voted undecided.

That really doesn't matter. Vote what you think. Your reputation doesn't matter, at all. This vote is about seeing whether there is enough interest for a compiler-related section. Polls are about seeing trends regardless of who you are. You are one member of the OSdev community, so your opinion matters, too!

If only Brendan and Combuster would read it (they are the two actives with the most reputation), it would not make any sense: even though the two best OSdevers out here would care about it, nobody else would.

The good news is, this may not be necessary after all, as BenCz did at least log into compdev.net yesterday, though he still hasn't answered my PM yet. If he does actually unlock the wiki again, and hopefully find someone to be a co-admin for when he is unavailable, we could limp along in the existing compdev site long enough to build up a more significant community.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:The good news is, this may not be necessary after all, as BenCz did at least log into compdev.net yesterday, though he still hasn't answered my PM yet. If he does actually unlock the wiki again, and hopefully find someone to be a co-admin for when he is unavailable, we could limp along in the existing compdev site long enough to build up a more significant community.

Do you really want to invest time in making a community with an unreliable administrator?

That's a valid point. It wouldn't make for a stable community. It the very least, there should be at least one other admin for the site; it may be better, though, to follow through with the original plan and restart from scratch after some time as an adjunct to OsDev.org. It will all depend on BenCz at this point, whether he really is back, and and how willing he is to share authority over the site or cede it entirely to others.

At first I was fanatical about the compdev site, but now, not so much. I'd like it to be under the careful watch of experienced admins combined with a part of an existing and thriving community, so yeah, it'd be nice. I've got some material I was going to add to the compdev wiki but to be honest, it's a waste of time if no-one will see it and if it's not in good hands. Same goes for all the other material other people wrote/will write.

This compiler topic seems to be pretty hot here, that's the third thread about this in the past 6 months

I started a "bare-bones" on CompilerDev as a user page on the wiki, but I did not complete it, as interest wasn't as great as I thought it'll be. I don't see any need for a compiler subforum; there would be nothing else than design discussions and noob-questions ("Tutorial xy does not work for me, help?!?!?!?!?! lol"). The first can be done on the IRC, as it's basically only a list of pros & cons. I don't care about the latter, as I don't want to hear stupid questions of 8-year-olds that do not know what gcc is but dream of creating "an OS like Windows 8, but prettier and more advanced".

no92 wrote:I don't want to hear stupid questions of 8-year-olds that do not know what gcc is but dream of creating "an OS like Windows 8, but prettier and more advanced".

But just think - this way you would get to hear stupid questions from 8-year-olds who don't know what Windows 8 is but dream of creating "a compiler like gcc, but faster and more advanced".

Oh yeah. What a fail

On the other hand, the 8-year-old are mostly incapable of writing correct English, including, but not limited to proper punctuation and not using "lol". (note: I'm not even talking about logical sentences! That's the step after gramatically correct English )

no92 wrote:Oh yeah. What a fail

On the other hand, the 8-year-old are mostly incapable of writing correct English, including, but not limited to proper punctuation and not using "lol". (note: I'm not even talking about logical sentences! That's the step after gramatically correct English )

Why are we even talking about 8-year-olds? If there would be one here, we'ld are have heard of lolOS .

Frankly I'm quite offended by all of this criticism of 8-year-olds. I first learnt to program when I was 8 years old and I might not have known a thing about gcc or ever heard of Windows 8 (it wasn't released yet) but I was still quite mature, wrote decent English, and didn't even know what "lol" meant.

onlyonemac wrote:Frankly I'm quite offended by all of this criticism of 8-year-olds. I first learnt to program when I was 8 years old and I might not have known a thing about gcc or ever heard of Windows 8 (it wasn't released yet) but I was still quite mature, wrote decent English, and didn't even know what "lol" meant.

When was that? How old are you now .

onlyonemac wrote:Frankly I'm quite offended by all of this criticism of 8-year-olds. I first learnt to program when I was 8 years old and I might not have known a thing about gcc or ever heard of Windows 8 (it wasn't released yet) but I was still quite mature, wrote decent English, and didn't even know what "lol" meant.

Stop being offended by something that clearly exaggerates on a fact in order to explain something. You're behaving like some non-christians that get "seriously" offended by a crucifix and want to get it removed because of them having "nightmares".

If you'd read my original post again (the one that offended you), you'd notice that I wasn't criticizing about programming 8-year-olds in general, but only about the ones that have no or little experience with programming but start spamming this forum ("GIVE ME THE CODE FOR THE GDT YOU <insert an insult here>. I don't even care about what you say lol").

So, now the poll has finished what is going to happen? Two observations:

1. The majority of people seem to want a sub-forum (albeit temporary).
2. There have been few, if any, posts about compilers in the General Programming forum since this poll started.

Either people are reluctant to post in General Programming (why?) or else they want a sub-forum (why?) but are unlikely to actually use it (why?).

Polls - aren't they wonderful?