From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 7 23:12:53 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BBB416A475 for ; Mon, 7 Jan 2008 23:12:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrew-freebsd@areilly.bpc-users.org) Received: from omta03ps.mx.bigpond.com (omta03ps.mx.bigpond.com [144.140.82.155]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 74DC613C468 for ; Mon, 7 Jan 2008 23:12:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrew-freebsd@areilly.bpc-users.org) Received: from oaamta02ps.mx.bigpond.com ([124.188.162.219]) by omta03ps.mx.bigpond.com with ESMTP id <20080107231250.AIM2997.omta03ps.mx.bigpond.com@oaamta02ps.mx.bigpond.com> for ; Mon, 7 Jan 2008 23:12:50 +0000 Received: from areilly.bpa.nu ([124.188.162.219]) by oaamta02ps.mx.bigpond.com with ESMTP id <20080107231250.JEQE23023.oaamta02ps.mx.bigpond.com@areilly.bpa.nu> for ; Mon, 7 Jan 2008 23:12:50 +0000 Received: (qmail 3505 invoked from network); 7 Jan 2008 23:12:09 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO duncan.reilly.home) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 7 Jan 2008 23:12:09 -0000 Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:12:09 +1100 From: Andrew Reilly To: Danny Braniss Message-ID: <20080108101209.01800eb6@duncan.reilly.home> In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.0.2 (GTK+ 2.12.3; amd64-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: rgrav , Tim Kientzle , Peter Schuller , Jason Evans , freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ELF dynamic loader name [was: sbrk(2) broken] X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:12:53 -0000 On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:49:20 +0200 Danny Braniss wrote: > I'm concerned in trying to solve a problem we are facing here, were > students/researchers > write code, and soon will be hit by incompatible platforms. Encourage them to write their code in something portable, like Java, scheme, python, matlab/octave? If they have to use C/C++/Fortran/ etc, they could get used to distribution in source? The binary compatibility wheel-of-reincarnation is an interesting one to watch. When I was a student and post-grad at Uni, our applications, when shared with colleagues, could very well have needed to run on any of Vax, 68k, MIPS (32 or 64 bit), SPARC (32-bit), ia32, x86 (16-bit: complicated pointers), with a few PowerPC and Alpha systems coming in at the end. So we used matlab or handed around source code. Before that it was all-the-world's-a-vax (unless you were in an IBM shop.) We've all been in a peculiar bubble for a few years where "almost everyone" has been using ia32, and it has been easy to think that that's all there is (except for weirdos), and that therefore binary distribution is OK. I reckon that we're just coming out of that mode, and transiting through something less even, probably until amd64 completes it's clean-sweep and becomes the "one and only" architecture again (to howls of protest from the ARM/embedded crowd...) That'll be a little way off, though... [I'm doing a lot of my own new coding in PLT scheme at the moment, and having a ball with it. (lang/drscheme in ports) Fast enough for what I'm doing, byte-code, static or JIT compiled, and runs everywhere (including Windows and OSX).] What would be *really* cool would be the ability to have a JVM or LLVM back-end in the kernel, as a first-class peer of the ELF loader. Anyone know if anyone has tried such a thing on *BSD (or even Linux, I guess)? Cheers, -- Andrew