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Comment by zeusk | Hacker News Reader

Call me a skeptic but the code isn't very confidence inspiring

https://github.com/dahlia-os/system-recovery/commit/49336659...

These guys used to be on the Fuchsia subreddit fairly frequently. They were definitely far from experienced or professional. IIRC, the founder is very young and was very much a beginner to OS development.

Usually hn is very positive towards young folks doing stuff, and doesn't measure it by the bar that older people get measured by. Why is this different this time?

Also even then, you'll probably find people doing mistakes, committing hacks, etc all the time. It's like complaining that the initial Linux release doesn't support x86... Linus didn't write it for x86 originally.

I didn’t mean for my comment to be an insult. It is as close to the truth as I remember, and was offered as an explanation for the potentially low code quality mentioned earlier in the thread.

It definitely isn't an insult :). I attempt to keep more quality and professionalism now, the earlier days of the project were, as they say, "turbulent". I do enjoy seeing criticism, as it guides us and often shows us points to improve, especially the code quality, which is being completely overhauled as we progress.

> It's like complaining that the initial Linux release doesn't support x86... Linus didn't write it for x86 originally.

What the hell is this nonsense?

Linus was working on a terminal program for his 386 with native x86 task switching and that's the origin story of Linux. It's clearly recorded on the wikipedia page for the kernel, and he speaks to this in Just For Fun IIRC.

Hmmm I misremembered it then. Thanks for pointing this out.

My general point still stands though. His initial Linux announcement E-Mail has this line:

> It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

So it wasn't very portable at the start. If you complained about it not being portable to different arches (idk which one was available at that time? SPARC? MIPS?), it would have been unfair. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Everyone has to start somewhere but the website makes it appear as if this is way more mature than a humble start.

If anything Linus was extra-humble when announcing it, kind of the opposite of what's going on here. This kind of marketing copy would be appropriate for a mature product, as it is it rubs some people the wrong way.

Startups do the same thing for their first few years. Some companies never drop this attitude. Tesla for example promises a ton of stuff like self driving, or just building proper cars where it doesn't rain inside [0], but they haven't delivered none of the two yet.

Like it or not, people like this kid run the world.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0EgvaKrfIs

Should we all aspire to over promise and under deliver? The fact that many do and some succeed is not convincing.

Generally the advice I hear from more experienced people is to under promise and over deliver.

Yeah, I asked the question about porting to the Mac II and got my head bitten off in the newsgroup. Thankfully that brought me to NetBSD.

The tagline ("modern, secure, lightweight and responsive operating system, combining the best of GNU/Linux and Fuchsia OS.") is brash and sets very high standards, so that might contribute a bit.

Besides, the comment you're replying on isn't really bashing them.

I think the skepticism and criticism of this project is reasonable, given the marketing. Look at it: https://dahliaos.io/

> a modern, secure, lightweight and responsive operating system, combining the best of GNU/Linux and Fuchsia OS

The initial announcement and first couple years of development of linux had no logo or website or anything. Let's compare:

> a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones

I usually just move on without comment ... but I'm kinda annoyed by the trend of the "npm generation" to have all this slick marketing bluster for experimental "just for learning" projects. Go ahead and compare to https://gcc.gnu.org/ - much less slick, much less marketing bluster, much more important project.

This dahliaOS has apparently recently joined the Open Invention Network "joining the likes of Google, IBM, SpaceX, Huawei, Microsoft, Yamaha, Honda, System76, GNOME, Daimler" and is accepting donations. Meanwhile, the founder says:

> A lot of my stuff is learning about kernel development and is mostly what I do. I do a lot with porting devices to fuchsia, and tinkering with the zircon kernel. Thats mostly it.

If there was just a repo and the readme just said that, I don't think there would be any skepticism and criticism here, just some interest and encouragement. But with all this slick marketing, skepticism and criticism is a healthy balance.

That's perfectly understandable, I even feel that I went a little too "slick marketing" with the website, but I have extremely high, maybe even too high goals for the project.

It's fine to have high (even unrealistic!) goals, but IMO you're doing your project a disservice by presenting it as if the future's already here.

I think it's a really interesting project but it's not an honest presentation (not in an exceptional way, it seems to be an existing trend in startup culture so it's understandable that people replicate it).

The wording is definitely a little brash and market-y, but I don't think there is anything on the site that is explicitly false, but of course it probably comes across as represented to be more finished than it actually is, which is a fair understanding.

Having high aspirations for your rock band is perfectly fine, but designing the album cover and the poster for the world tour when you only play some covers from other bands is probably not the best way to make yourself a name in the scene.

I don't know your project in particular so I don't know if this is what you are doing, but I agree with ploxiln in that it is a general trend nowadays.

The criticism about programming projects is good, but do not take this advice for your band.

Hahahaha. Fair enough.

> but designing the album cover and the poster for the world tour when you only play some covers from other bands is probably not the best way to make yourself a name in the scene.

I'm not sure it's not. And that's kinda sad...

I'm a product first guy myself, but those Lamborghinis you see on the street generally are NOT driven by product first people…

It does seem to be a trend nowdays. I think the most fitting analogy to what we are doing is "Desigining the album cover for the world tour, when we only have a few songs for it." It most definitely is a little overerpresented on the website, but i'd say the goals and features are completely attainable, they are represented to be high when they are really standard features that are relatively easy to implement.

“Making is show business now” https://alexdanco.com/2020/10/08/making-is-show-business-now...

Being positive about young folk doesn't imply a confidence in the tech they produce. This applies just as much to Linus Torvalds as it does to everyone else: you'd be a fool to trust the disk image just based on his enthusiasm.

Its the internet, i think its fair for people to criticize, likewise the author has no obligation to listen as well.

Hi this is Camden, yeah I'm pretty young. I was very new to OS development. Some of us aren't the most experienced at this kind of stuff, but we're doing pretty well I think for what we can do. A lot of my stuff is learning about kernel development and is mostly what I do. I do a lot with porting devices to fuchsia, and tinkering with the zircon kernel. Thats mostly it.

You’re miles ahead of where I was at your age, and it looks like a very interesting project. Keep at it and good luck!

Nice Project, and always remember:

Have FUN!

How old was Linus Torvalds when started Linux?

> How old was Linus Torvalds when started Linux?

He was 21.

I think I was like 13/14 when I started dahlia.

Forgetting to run the formatter before git committing is not that big of a deal.

“asdasdasd”

Actually it's pretty common: https://github.com/search?q=asdasd&type=commits

Indeed. However what is more telling is failing to set up git commit hooks (so one doesn’t need to remember running a formatter) and then randomly mashing the keyboard for the commit message.

Or maybe it's that the code looks like plain HTML instead of being organised by components.

Thankfully that's just around for layout reference, working with the Process class was absolutely infuriating. I have made more effort since then to be more verbose and keeping the code up to a decent quality.

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