
A Constructive Look at TempleOS (2015) - mrkgnao
http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/
======
pcorey
FWIW, I wrote a Julia Set explorer in HolyC for TempleOS a couple years back.
It was definitely an interesting experience!

[https://github.com/pcorey/julia-templeos](https://github.com/pcorey/julia-
templeos)

~~~
mempko
Wow, that's tight. Really just gets to the point.

------
tsheikhs
I've been dabbling in learning TempleOS programming for a bit, did a host-
guest driver giving VMware Tools-like functionality, minimal web browser, Mega
Man game engine & DOS demoscene style intro, Github stuff is here if anyone's
interested:

[https://github.com/tramplersheikhs](https://github.com/tramplersheikhs)

~~~
mabynogy
Amazing website too ;-) [https://sheikhs.space/](https://sheikhs.space/)

------
brian-armstrong
The argument put forth in this article is not being entirely fair.

Although there are many people who are instantly dismissive of Davis, I've
seen others give him a fair engagement on his ideas. They bend over backwards
to give him some credibility. How does Davis respond to this? He stubbornly
refuses any and all crticism, no matter how leveled it is.

I've watched him go in circles for pages in forums where people modestly
suggest easy improvements to his design. As always, it's a little hard to
separate out the mental illness from the person. But to say people don't
attempt to engage Davis fairly is flatly disingenuous, and I think the author
ought to try it before making that claim.

~~~
tmsldd
I'm not trying to rise any polemics about.. just for the sake of the
debate...but is there any social skills difference to Linus? I mean, I just
admire both of them.. there are very few people that can drive complex
projects like Linux and templeOS.. and mental stability is something that
doesn't really help much here. What I want to say is: people are like they
are... we just need to love them, give them a chance to be heard.. in the end
we all go back to ashes and our ideas stay flying freely... I've been running
a team of about 70 people and it amazes me how different personalities create
a dynamic organism... made of just tiny little imperfect pieces..

~~~
michaelmrose
I feel as if perhaps if you can compare linus and Terry then you perhaps
haven't thought the matter all the way through.

In the first place mental and social stability are not only helpful but
absolutely essential in any endeavor requiring sustained effort and
cooperation from more than one party. A multitude are involved either directly
in linux or in projects that depend on same whereas TempleOS is a one man show
not just in terms of development but even in terms of usage since if I recall
correctly it doesn't do networking. Every user is figuratively an island.

Further it ought to be obvious that there is a substantial difference between
Linus sometimes being an asshole and a mental disorder which often leaves the
sufferer incapable of meaningfully connecting to reality or the rest of
humanity let alone contributing.

Look at Terry he obviously possesses intelligence but it mainly serves to
provide a diversion while he wastes his life away between racist paranoid
rants on the internet.

If anything his existence is an example of a waste, a waste of everyone else's
time and especially a waste of terry who of all people can't get away from
himself nor effect his own cure. We do need better ways in the future to help
people like terry but we do not need silly equivocation.

~~~
tmsldd
Of course, there maybe quite some differences between them. One is obviously
the scale (Can anyone imagine the world without Linux ?). My point was about
their personalities.. and I'm not really doing any value analysis.. again for
the sake of the debate..

------
SCHiM
Especially HyperText/DolDoc is something that seems like a very nice feature
to have. Perhaps one day someone might port something similar for Linux
shells?

It seems like that is what the Linux 'text only' input/output should have
been. Instead of parsing ASCII which will bring about the incompatibilities
that we see today, it would have been better to have all tools input/output
HTML/XML and translate it into human readable text in the shell for when
output is redirected to the terminal.

~~~
nateguchi
Something like an inline HTML & XML markup (like iXBRL[0]) would be
appropriate for this - both machine and human readable, and formatted.

[0] iXBRL is a markup language used for company accounts (I think it might be
a requirement for submitting company accounts in the UK). Details:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBRL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBRL)
Example: [http://www.xbrl.org.uk/techguidance/bbbbb-
ltd.html](http://www.xbrl.org.uk/techguidance/bbbbb-ltd.html)

------
br1n0
In other words templeos is a unikernel with a jit compiler. The name is odd,
the author is strange, do you judge a movie by private life of the authors?
The illness of van gogh, Gödel didn't affect their creations. missing
graphical interface is a defect. An unikernal is a strange beast, sound crazy,
but got some advantages: is simpler, could be understood completely by a human
(and not only by a genius), there are no penality for system calls, and there
is no cpu time wasted on context switch. Because the machine are getting
cheaper is common to have only one user, so all these security became useless,
so on the long run the unikernels will be mainstream. Kudos to him. a relevant
discussion about unikernel here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10362897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10362897)

~~~
laumars
The advantage of multiple "users" isn't just blocking one person's access to
another person's stuff. It's also a valuable tool for sandboxing system
processes which need to run parallel on the same host system.

I'm addition to that, a monolithic unikernel (as unikernels usually are) would
have the issue of a higher tendency for kernel panics.

So i really can't see unikernels becoming mainstream. If anything the reverse
trend is true with more complex kernel designs like micro kernels becoming
more favourable as computing hardware gets cheaper.

The real growth area for unikernels is virtualized appliances, eg running a
single purpose service as a Xen unikernel. But even that is awfully​ niche and
often better served (particularly in terms of developer and sysadmin
productivity) with containers these days.

~~~
nickpsecurity
In that case, you need process isolation and permissions not user privileges.
Prior models for mandatory, access control and capability-based security can
already do what you're describing. KeyKOS did it in production on mainframes
decades ago with extra benefit of persistence for app data. System/38 did one
of those models, too, at CPU level. Later became AS/400 and IBM i. AS/400's
run and run and run.

So, if you want POLA and damage containment, one option is imitating old
designs that pulled that off. Patents expired, too. ;)

~~~
laumars
Oh I'm fully aware there are a thousand different ways to accomplish similar
results. Further to your point, you can also support multiple physical users
without actually running a multi-user system as well (eg Windows 95).

However you have to bare in mind that this tangent did start off as an
exercise in generalisations so I was following on from that by pointing out
that many current multi-user systems also use user accounts as a tool for
reducing the exposure a process has. While you'd obviously agree that it's a
long way from being the most secure method of hardening a OS, it is still a
pretty typical way for many desktop systems to operate.

------
ethanbas
A friend of mine made a timeline of TempleOS:
[https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_TempleOS](https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_TempleOS)

~~~
KboPAacDA3
I have been creating monthly archives of his website(s) and videos since 2012,
hoping someone in the future will find them useful. I wonder where they can be
stored online.

~~~
FoxotCW
His fans on /g/ would be very interested. You ought to create a torrent and
post it on the TOS /g/ threads. Maybe separate out his topical tutorial videos
from the livestreams.

------
setheron
Its a shame he hasn't hopped onto the OSS fad and taken advantage of GitHub to
collect contributions. Maybe it others could this a neat project for their
master/thesis?

~~~
mrkgnao
From the TempleOS homepage:

> No police state. Nothing is different from 1990 except we don't have any
> enemies. The World has gadgets to amuse itself. Eliminate fat-ass government
> jobs. Eliminate CIA, NSA and TSA. Don't fucken touch my computer, CIA
> ------. Githib is to register and control dangerous people and code. No
> cloud.

One needs the context. It's very stream-of-consciousness-y.

------
Y_Y
Has anyone ever looked at making a more "mainstream" fork? It feels like
there's a lot of cool technology in TempleOS, in amongst the less cool stuff.

~~~
spacelizard
Someone was working on one for a little bit, but seems to have stopped:
[https://github.com/minexew/Shrine](https://github.com/minexew/Shrine)

May be a good starting point for anyone else interested.

~~~
Y_Y
Last commit was half an hour ago. Apart from the notice it seems to be
relatively active.

They've added networking, a package manager and a unix-like shell. That's
really cool. You could put it in a container and use it as an emacs
alternative.

~~~
striking
> use it as an emacs alternative.

That's inspiring. I almost want to do this, just for the "nerd cred". It would
be a pretty workable environment, and probably faster than emacs.

------
ww520
In some ways, TempleOS looks like an enhanced MS-DOS, where everything runs in
ring 0, all tasks shares the memory space, and everything has access to all
files.

------
soneca
I have the impression that this project gets so much attention _because_ of
its author's idiosyncrasy, not _despite_ of it.

Was it created by a non-racist, mentally-healthy, socially apt individual
wouldn't it be regarded as a neat but not extra-ordinary hobby project?

I believe it would not be so frequently a topic at HN front page. But I would
like to hear others opinions on this.

~~~
hapless
Back when the author took his medication more regularly, the project was
called "LoseTheOS" and it was similarly popular for its interesting features.

Terry's online behavior has grown increasingly odd, but he project's fame pre-
dates the odd behavior

~~~
Y_Y
He seems to stream himself a lot recently (he's even on now -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEwmiplwGLI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEwmiplwGLI)
). He just browses the internet and he sent some viewers money. It's pretty
surreal.

~~~
i336_
Well that took quite a number of "New Tor circuit for this site"! (You'll see
what I mean.)

Canada works.

------
macspoofing
>This combination of TempleOS's amateurish approach and Terry's unfortunate
outbursts have resulted in TempleOS being often regarded as something to be
mocked, ignored, or forgotten.

I've only ever heard positives things said about TempleOS.

