Python Operating System???

[Bulba!]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 08:28:12 GMT, "Roose" <b at b.b> wrote:

>I am not trying to be insulting... but unless someone would like to educate
>me otherwise, the idea of an OS written in Python is almost ludicrous.  As I
>said, I think you might mean an OS SHELL, which would be a reasonable
>(although maybe unconventional) thing to write in python.

That's a crazy idea I once had - what if a user could run Python as
a shell of Linux/other free U**x, and access every single subsystem
and piece of data in the object-like manner?

Sure, things like pipes and immediate access to files without having
to open() them and the whole filesystem hierarchy would have to be
added. Quite a lot of plumbing work would have to be done,
but once it were done, it would be like an object operating 
system, everything organized nicely in predictable object hierarchies
with dot access. 

System scripts would no longer be a mess that breaks every now and
then depending on slight differences in filesystem hierarchy. Python
dictionaries with their ability to quickly bind names to various
objects would make it possible to keep such hierarchy stable, even
with data moving around on different physical disk partitions and
folders. Instead of saying:

# cp  /etc/postfix/main.cf  /mnt/floppy

the user could say e.g.

.>>> copy system[config][mta] floppy

or 

.>>> copy system.config.mta floppy

In an "object system" like Python it could be reasonable to 
consider writing a class that would implement at least a 
subset of generic interface to the equivalent functionalities
of various MTAs. Maybe. With traditional filesystems trying
smth like that is not really reasonable, because 99% of 
the time it would work, but 1% of the time it would fail
and that 1% would ruin the whole venture, as handling 
low-level OS complexity for a non-tech user has to be 
more reliable than that - in two cases when I installed
Linux for free for someone the installation was finally
deleted by those users because the desktop shortcuts
to devices like floppy and CD ultimately failed to work
for some reason and using 'mount -t iso9660 ...' was 
not an option that they would consider learning and 
using really.

Think about all the potential! On top of clean, stable
system interface a user could use map, filter and reduce
functions on various system objects. Handlers for
files with known structure could be written, so 
dot or list or dictionary access would allow manipulating 
data inside the files, like file[rownumber]='spam', or 
spreadsheet_file['A2', 100]. Or you could issue commands
like browser.go('somewhere') or desktop.edit('hello.txt').

I was considering writing smth like this myself but it's
way over my head re low-level OS and kernel stuff. :-( 

IMHO Linux problem has long been that in its lower level
interface (above kernel and below GUI) is way too much like 
traditional UNIX. Sure someone with sysadmin experience 
can use it - but in my experience it's way over the head of 
the typical user. Trying to teach them about mknod and 
/dev/* hierarchy is hopeless and too hard for them. 



--
It's a man's life in a Python Programming Association.