Python Operating System???

[Paul Rubin]

"Roose" <b at b.b> writes:
> An OS is NOT an application.  It is a completely different kind of program.
> Do you guys understand the difference between user and kernel mode?  Do you
> know what address spaces and hardware interrupts are?  Python is not
> equipped to handle these things.  You would end up doing so much in C
> extensions that it could barely be called Python.

You'd need some library functions to let Python access device registers
and you'd need some low level code to dispatch interrupts into Python code.

> 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.

Is an OS written in Lisp also ludicrous?  Because it's been done.

When Unix was first written, people thought implementing an OS in C
was ludicrous.  Everyone knew OS's had to be written in assembler.

> Also I am no threading expert, but I would imagine it would be very hard to
> write a task scheduler in Python given that it has the whole GIL thing.  (As
> I said that isn't my domain of expertise but I'm sure someone here could
> expound on that.)

The GIL is not part of the Python language.  It's just an artifact of
one particular implementation.