Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!lll-tis!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!mit-kermit.UUCP!krowitz
From: krowitz@mit-kermit.UUCP (David Krowitz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: procedural interfaces
Message-ID: <8706291746.AA09491@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 29-Jun-87 13:03:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: EDDIE.8706291746.AA09491
Posted: Mon Jun 29 13:03:02 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jul-87 01:31:08 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 27

No, sorry, YOU missed MY point! (as usual). 
Of course Apollo (or Berkley, or anyone else for that matter) wants to
support as little software as they have to. The point I was making was
that if enough users get together and ask for the same feature time and
again, then the manufacturer (Apollo in this instance) will feel some
pressure to provide it. If everyone just sits on their ass and grumbles
to themselves and never get around to writing UCRs (or sending mail to
Sun, or whatever) then NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE, and we will be forced
to muck around with /dev/kmem (or invoke LCNODE, or someother horrible
kludge which will break just as soon as someone changes the kernal).
The problem with a feature like /dev/kmem is that by publishing the
structures on the internal tables of the kernal you have created a
program interface which must be supported just like any other system
library *and* you have, at the same time, made an irrevocable decision
about how the kernal is going to look in the future. If a feature is
needed in the OS, the thing to do is to get together 10 or 20 people
from across the country (easy enough to do with email) and have a UCR writing
party, not to demand that the entire kernal be rewritten to look like
an operating system that was cast in stone 10 years ago.


                                   -- David Krowitz

mit-erl!mit-kermit!krowitz@eddie.mit.edu
mit-erl!mit-kermit!krowitz@mit-eddie.arpa
krowitz@mit-mc.arpa
(in order of decreasing preference)