Post #4245123

2026-07-30 15:48 UTC

So many POSIX 'RATIONALE' sections can be distilled to: One vendor did stupid thing A. Another did stupid thing B. We defined this interface to permit both implementations because designing a third thing that's sensible is, sadly, not within our remit and there are existing consumers of both of the stupid APIs.

Replies (5)

@dalias@hachyderm.io 2026-07-30 15:52

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange And it's almost always the right thing to do. The job is to describe the unifying principles of existing implementations so that people can write portable software that works on any of them, not to redefine a new thing incompatible with everything else out there but "more aesthetically right in the committee's opinion".

Open ##4245316
@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange 2026-07-30 16:44

So many standards processes seem to be a bunch of really smart people doing damage limitation.

Open ##4246483
@farooqkz@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-07-30 16:52

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange I very much am interested in looking OS designs beyond #Unix. For instance I felt a real need for a different programming interface, OS and filesystem while I was doing research. I thought I wanted a #Lisp Machine comeback(hence title of the blog post below). But after research, I found the precise term to be "residential style developement". Below is me blog post: https://far.chickenkiller.com/computing/do-i-need-a-lisp-machine-comeback/ I have also seen other software developers complaining about storage interface in Operating Systems and programming languages. For instance, here's a quote from Viktor who develops #Marginalia search engine complaining about this: > This is mostly a post to complain about something > that chafes. I wish there was a programming language (ideally several) that acknowledged that computers have hard drives, not just a processor, RAM and other_devices[]. His blog post is here: https://www.marginalia.nu/log/53-better-hard-drive-metaphor/

Open ##4249967
@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network 2026-07-30 15:49

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange I am now having flashbacks to the pthreads standardization process and I think maybe I need to go lie down a bit until I forget again.

Open ##4254103
@Girgias@phpc.social 2026-07-30 15:52

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange *oh* is that why POSIX specs are always whack?

Open ##4254124