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Comment by ehsanu1 | Hacker News Reader

The problem with that is "Worse is Better". And there's just so much momentum behind current technologies, that switching seems almost unimaginable to most. Can you imagine not having Unix-like systems, and not being able to use C and all the languages built around that ecosystem?

But if you're looking for a replacement for the entire software stack we use today, one that tries to shun complexity (20k LOC for everything from kernel to common GUI apps), here you go: http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf

More info (see previous STEPS reports): http://vpri.org/html/writings.php

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Thanks for the link. I will check this out later.

>Can you imagine not having Unix-like systems, and not being able to use C and all the languages built around that ecosystem?

Yes! Charles Moore has been essentially living this since the 1970's. No many have his level of courage though.

> Yes! Charles Moore has been essentially living this since the 1970's. No many have his level of courage though.

I'm an unbounded admirer of Charles Moore. But courageous? He's a software solipsist. His approach is certainly bold but I doubt he sees himself as courageous.

Call it bold or courageous. He's doing something few are willing to do. I'm not saying he's a hero in the same sense as a soldier or anything here, but he's worth 100x more than the drones who just keep piling mess upon mess without even being able to admit what they are doing.

You mean this one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_H._Moore

Can you give some more detail? What does he use?

Towards the bottom of that page it mentions color forth. That is what he uses. It is a forth like language that removed punctuation and replaces it with colors.

Ah, upon further reading, colorForth has its own operating system, so he probably uses that too. I had seen the forth bits, but the GP implied he was using some non-Unix OS, and I was still curious about that.

Forth is conventionally a compiler, REPL, editor and OS all in one package. If I recall correctly, the reference implementation of ColorForth happens to run as a Windows application, but it pretty much lives in its own memory image and could probably be made bootable.

Sorry I wasn't clearer about that. Much like there were Lisp machines in the 80s Mr. Moore ran(perhaps still runs) a company that does custom Forth machines. So he uses his own hardware and his own software, turtles all the way down so to speak.

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