✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 1

one thing that i really dislike about Unix is the zealous adherence to semi-accidental design elements that ends up interfering with the utility of the underlying useful principle

for example:

  • early Unix could not run too complex a program due to hardware restrictions, so programs were composed using text streams
  • useful underlying principle: designing your applications for composition
  • zealous interpretation: your OS should have a toolkit of single-purpose programs communicating over text streams
  • design we could have had, but never will: applications that communicate using structured data, simplifying life for both programmers and end users
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 1

there is also much to be said about splitting your application into many different pieces, but keeping a unified approach to application design so that the pieces may be understood via a unified mental model

i think some Unices (that i haven't really used enough to comment) do approach userspace design like this, but the GNU-plus-random-tools userspace you're much more likely to encounter definitely doesn't

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 1

why the actual fuck does Linux not have a syscall for /proc/self/maps

it is beyond ridiculous that the 2026 solution to "find out what my memory mappings are" is fucking fscanf

Show threaduis
@whitequark at least you won't get some unexpected ioctl when implementing procfs implementation with fuse.
Also, Linux procfs is not one from Unix, it's one from Plan 9.
Feb 5 at 2:26amWeb
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Feb 5
@uis go away
Show threaduisFeb 5
@whitequark I will leave, but leave you with thoughts of procfs in userspace. And maybe some sandboxing.