OSDev.org

lollynoob wrote:Also, how is it not the user's job to operate their computer safely? The operating system isn't there to hold your hand and make sure you don't delete everything by accident.

esa wrote:@Alboin

I guess in that case all current mainstream OSes get a failing grade in usability. What would we need to correct the situation? A single dynamic totally task-oriented GUI for the whole OS? Can we really anticipate everything the user might want to do and construct an UI for him/her beforehand to do it?

Alboin wrote:No, we can't. My point there was the idea of an ideal computer. The entire goal of any operating system and computer, in fact, is as I stated: to perform a task of the user. If we could always perform the user's task perfectly, then you'd have the perfect OS.

lollynoob wrote:Seeing as the user's goals are completely unknown to the computer, shouldn't the perfect OS be the one which is the most open-ended? Also, to achieve this, shouldn't limitations be as few as possible as far as what the user (or the user's software) can and cannot do?

No, because being faced with too many choices generally has a negative impact on a person's psychological well-being.

lollynoob wrote:
Seeing as the user's goals are completely unknown to the computer, shouldn't the perfect OS be the one which is the most open-ended? Also, to achieve this, shouldn't limitations be as few as possible as far as what the user (or the user's software) can and cannot do?

No, because being faced with too many choices generally has a negative impact on a person's psychological well-being.

oscoder wrote: The problem here is that you (both I think) are considering the OS as a whole, rather than the individual parts. IMHO the core of the OS (kernel, etc) should be as open ended as possible, but the outer parts (shell, some apis, etc) should be less open, in order to make things easier on the user. The shell can always be changed if it doesn't fit the user's goals well anyway.

jal wrote:

oscoder wrote: The problem here is that you (both I think) are considering the OS as a whole, rather than the individual parts. IMHO the core of the OS (kernel, etc) should be as open ended as possible, but the outer parts (shell, some apis, etc) should be less open, in order to make things easier on the user. The shell can always be changed if it doesn't fit the user's goals well anyway.

I disagree. As a programmer, I do not want many choices either. Take the 300,000,000 call Win32 API, for example. It's an example of how not to do it.


JAL

bewing wrote:First, each API call requires some system code to handle. Which increases bloat, and slows everything down. So minimizing the number of API calls should be a design goal.

Second, it takes time for a programmer to learn how to use each API call. If there are too many, it becomes a burden ... then, with each additional call, it becomes more and more impossible.

An OS that has a lot of API calls needs to have a REALLY good documentation system, that tells you which call to use to do what, and exactly how to use it -- and not one of the current major OSes actually has such a documentation system.

And if the OS is telling you which call to use to accomplish each programming goal -- are there really 300,000,000 completely independent programming goals? Of course there are not. API calls are "primitives", and you build your programs with a nicely designed minimal set of standardized primitives.

uint bytes = read(handle, buffer, offset, length)
while(errno() != E_NOT_AVAILABLE) {
    uint thread_handle = getCurrentThread();
    letTheDriverWakeMeUp(thread_handle, handle);
    letThisThreadSleepIfDataNotAvailable(thread_handle, handle);
    bytes = read(handle, buffer, offset, length);
}
if(errno() != E_SUCCES)
    return 0;
return bytes;

Korona wrote:I think MSDN provides good documentation about the windows api but I never used it so I can't be sure.