Hacker News Reader

Actually, I can kinda see the advantages there - but isn't insanity just a natural result of trying to work in lots of contexts?

I mean, consider something like vim. It's a nice program, well designed - but undoubtedly insane, just because it's supposed to work in every imaginable context.

It strikes me that plan9 wouldn't be immune to the same phenomenon.

View on HN

It is all about keeping the OS sane to give the users and applications a chance to be sane, rather than causing madness from the get-go.

However, if the system permits arbitrary applications to be executed (which plan9 does), then it cannot be shielded from madness. Proof: plan9 has a POSIX compatibility layer (APE), a vt100 terminal emulator and a vim port. It even has an aging full-on linux emulator. I think it could run a really old version of Firefox, but the memory is vague. People swear by Mothra these days anyway.

It also has a virtual machine system down served by vmx(1) http://man.cat-v.org/9front/1/vmx.

That's new. Haven't used 9front for a while.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com