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From: nahum@unreal.cs.umass.edu (Erich Nahum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Subject: Re: Publisher and Release Date For Mach Book ?
Message-ID: <32724@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 91 20:44:16 GMT
References: <1991Jun26.182905.11834@cherokee.uswest.com> <32674@dime.cs.umass.edu> <64883@bbn.BBN.COM>
Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu
Reply-To: nahum@unreal.cs.umass.edu (Erich Nahum)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Lines: 75

It seems some apologies, or at least explanations, are in order, on my
part.  My original post was not meant to badmouth the authors; rather,
it was to find out who they are.  If it came across that way, then
I apologize.

In article <64883@bbn.BBN.COM> fkittred@spca.bbn.com (Fletcher Kittredge) writes:
>Why do you think that Richie and Thompson never wrote a book on the design of
>the Unix operating system?  Who is this man Bach anyhow?

I didn't mean to imply that only Rick Rashid is qualified to write a
Mach book.  Obviously Bach's Unix book is a good counterexample.  This was 
meant more as a joke, as the `seriously' line later suggests.  I guess 
I should have put a smiley face, though.

>>I've read a lot of Mach papers, but I haven't heard of these people.  
>>Perhaps they're from Mt. Xinu?
>
>Really?  You seemed to have missed much.  At Encore, A. Langermann has done 
>some of the most significant work on taking Mach and making it really work.  
>Perhaps you should include in your Mach education with some of his many 
>papers on the subject.
>
	[two USENIX ref's omitted]

As a grad student studying operating systems, my slant has been mostly
academic, and most of my sources are from ACM and IEEE/CS.  I have recently
joined USENIX, though, and will look up these references.
 
>If you don't know whom Eric Sheinbrood is you are really out of touch.  It 
>is even more difficult to conceive that you could be involved with Mach and 

I have not claimed to be `involved' with Mach.  I've simply read through
a number of papers in SOSP, ASPLOS, ACM TOCS, IEEE TOC, etc.  In an 
advanced OS class, though, I did go through some of the 1.0 VM and IPC 
source code.

>not know whom N. Bitar is.  However, I understand through UCLA and the ACM 
>he is continuing to offer courses in Mach internals, so perhaps you could 
>catch one.

I would be thrilled to catch one.  There was a Mach workshop in Boston
last year that I wanted to go to, but couldn't due to time and financial
constraints.  These things cost money.

>>Wouldn't it make sense that people who actually did work on the system, 
>>like Tevanian, Young, Golub, Fitzgerald (OK, Accent), and Black, be 
>>involved with the book?
>
>No, it wouldn't necessarily make sense.  Writing a book takes an enormous 
>amount of effort.  Not everyone has the time or energy to devote to the 

This is certainly true.  However, Patterson and Hennessy have shown it
is possible that top-flight researchers can take the time to produce 
an excellent text.

>>Seriously though, perhaps someone at CMU can comment as to the
>>authenticity of this book, the authors' involvement, etc.
>
>I don't understand what you are implying here.  Do you think that 
>Langermann et. al. are going to deceive us about the design of Mach?

This is NOT the case.  I did not mean to imply this at all.
`Authenticity' is a loaded word, and was a bad choice.  As I mentioned 
above, I was looking to find out who the authors were.

Now I know, and thanks to various people for enlightening me.  
Believe me, I'll be one of the first in line to get this book!

-Erich

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Erich Nahum                            A305 Lederle Graduate Research Center
Real-Time Systems Group                Department of Computer Science     
nahum@cs.umass.edu                     University of Massachusetts at Amherst
(413) 545-4753                         Amherst, MA 01003