AltME groups: search

I've just got an Out-Of-Memory error.

Is there any way to have more virtual memory for REBOL to use. In 
Java, I can use command-line options to ask the OS to allocate more 
memory for my app. In REBOL, I have no idea.

on windows, the OS should give you all the VM until the OS runs out. 
 I've had REBOL use more than 1 GB of RAM... without doing anything 
special.

(obviously, perfomance drops dramatically... but that's the OS's 
fault)

does REBOL always return the data as print it out here (using the 
struct!) or will that change based on OS/HW ?

No, /direct just allows control of rebol's memory buffer. Rebol goes 
out to the host filesystem via host OS API calls. The host filesystem 
may still not actually write the data to disk immediately. To be 
sure of an immediate write, you would flush the disk cache, using 
a mechanism provided by the host OS and filesystem. (eg. in WinXP, 
if you disable one of the harddisks, it flushes the cache, then spins 
the disk down. There must be another way to flush the disk, but I 
never learned that.)

Is time quantisized? ;-)

Anton, that might be right under Windows. I think, under UNIX (Linux, 
OS X, etc.) the minimum time unit is less than that. Under OS X:
>> now/time/precise
== 17:28:10.349125

That's interesting. I don't know about OS X, but that *could* be 
just the rebol OS X beta molding of the seconds floating point number.

time really is quantized depending on the OS. XP SP 2 has got a bigger 
quantum than XP SP 1, which was 10 milliseconds IIRC

I was asking and ranting about being able to accept OS events ... 
and IIRC no one droped this on me !

Gabriele - so what is "tasking" in R3 going to be under the hood? 
There were various things said - 1) we will have something like make 
task! syntax, which will use OS threads in the background, just hiding 
the complexity of threading model from user (= simplicity in rebol 
level) 2) In one of recent blogs and their comments Carl said he 
might have its own way of how to do tasking in Rebol. So, how will 
it look? Is it already decided?

Gabriele - so you already partially answered my question - OS threads 
in the low level, but from the user pov it will be abstracted by 
eg. make task! syntax plus port model?

also, it's probably harder to do, when the os already provides threading, 
and the os libs are good with threading but not with your system.

hmm, that is interesting situation indeed. First we thought of parralelism 
as multiple CPUs in the system. Now the trend is to place multiple 
CPU cores in one CPU. I wonder if we can influence, what task/thread 
in OS uses what Core? Is there any API, or CPU decides on its own?

i think the os decides how threads/processes are scheduled.

i would guess it is a new implementation. there are two reasons it 
must be: the os code has to be separate, and the internal model is 
probably very different.

Henrik: it seems to be very bad. But it looks that OSX will not be 
such a bad OS if it allows you work even with apps eating so much 
memory.

How widely spread is it? Compiler for OS X, handhelds, alternative 
OSs? Does it speak with OpenGL and GLUT? What support of sound?

Umm, my exposure is still cursory.  But it's been working great under 
GNU/Linux.

Samples are sparse, but building.  iirc, the first release was January 
2007.
OS X support with through a gcc front/back end

From a fresh REBOL/View 1.3.2.3.1 :

>> system/stats
== 4236013
>> system/stats/recycle
== [1 2054 2054 183 183 1869648]
>> make string! 1'860'000
== ""
>> system/stats
== 6099084
>> system/stats/recycle
== [1 2054 2054 183 183 7088]
>> make string! 10'000
== ""
>> system/stats
== 3210049
>> system/stats/recycle
== [2 6385 4331 543 360 2999280]

Just guessing: 


REBOL triggers a GC when the "ballast" value (the last one in the 
block) reaches 0. Then the GC frees only the values that aren't referenced 
anymore. So GC are predictable if you know exactly how much memory 
is consumed by each evaluated expression. Remember that it very easy 
in REBOL to keep hidden references on values (like functions persistent 
context)...


So that way, it keeps a fast average time for new allocations. (I 
guess also that series! and scalar values are managed with different 
rules).


The above example also shows that REBOL gives memory back to the 
OS, but the conditions for that to happen are not very clear to me. 
The GC probably uses complex strategies. If the GC internal rules 
were exposed, we could optimize the memory usage of your applications, 
and probably the speed too.

doc, stats decreases, however size in task manager seems to stay 
the same, so i don't know if memory is actually deallocated or kept. 
maybe the os keeps it for the process.

if you play a little more with this example allocating big buffers 
then releasing them, you'll see memory used going up and down (I 
even could go back close to initial state after something like  a: 
make string! 100'000 recycle). So REBOL releases some parts to OS, 
but it's hard to predict how much and when...

Hi Phil.  I guess it depends on what OS the AS/400 is running.  I 
have seen some references to AIX  or Linix, which Rebol does have 
a version for, although it is probably an old version.  http://www.rebol.com/platforms-core.html

Fork, I read some of your posts again. I'm wondering, if this is 
different in different versions of REBOL. I tried one of your suggestions 
and found, that it worked here with version 2.7.6 (and 2.7.5) under 
OS X:

>> reduce [y: 'x switch to-lit-word y ['x [print "hello"]]]
hello
== [x unset]

Do you get same result?

That placeholder concept is cool. I wonder if it shouldn't be integrated 
into the OS ?

I don't know the answer, Henrik, but since you mention it, I really 
think that the act of moving a file should be invoked by a function 
named something like "MOVE" or "MOVE-FILE", regardless of whether 
its implementation in the OS is by a "rename" function.

I think I know what the trouble is - it's not easy to know whether 
a host OS rename can support move or not. Therefore rebol can't choose 
beforehand between rename and copy+delete.

A workaround to that might be to try the rename first and see if 
it works (does not return an error message), but that adds complexity 
and performance problems. It could be done once at rebol startup 
in a temp directory, though it still seems a bit messy.

(The real solution seems to be to go back in time and define POSIX 
rename and move properly.)

the GC makes the memory available again to rebol, not necessarily 
the OS.

Ahhh, thanks Gabriele.  What about the OS? - can we return that freed 
memory to the OS instead?

i don't think there is any way to force rebol to return the memory 
to the OS, and I don't think there's any need either, but that depends 
on the OS i guess.

Gabriele, I'm afraid, that's not good enough. Try this:
>> loop 10 [random/seed now/precise print random 100]
28
28
28
28
28
28
28
28
28
28

While if I do it my way, I get this:

>> loop 10 [random/seed to decimal! now/time/precise print random 
100]
75
53
21
3
2
57
54
69
74
15

(I did it under OS X with version 2.7.6)

It seems, that
random/seed now
does exactly the same as
random/seed now/precise
(Only tested under OS X so far.)

Probably you can. Try this, from Carl Sassenrath 2002:
http://anton.wildit.net.au/rebol/os/system-port-trap-example.r

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124702911173210237.html#mod=djemalertTECH
Google OS for netbooks

Google OS for netbooks

Haiku OS alpha 1 released. So when is R3 going to be ready for it? 
:-)

http://www.haiku-os.org/

Microsoft releases code for "multikernel" research OS - Barrelfish 
- 


http://www.osnews.com/story/22241/Microsoft_Releases_Code_for_Multikernel_Research_OS_Barrelfish_


Most of us are probably aware of Singularity, a research operating 
system out of Microsoft Research which explored a number of new ideas, 
which is available as open source software. Singularity isn't the 
only research OS out of Microsoft; they recently released the first 
snapshot of a new operating system, called Barrelfish. It introduces 
the concept of the multikernel, which treats a multicore system as 
a network of independent cores, using ideas from distributed systems.

Credit: News taken from OSNews.com

Another MS Research OS - Helios ... sounds like a distributed REBOL 
:-)


Helios is an operating system designed to simplify the task of writing, 
deploying, and tuning applications for heterogeneous platforms. Helios 
introduces satellite kernels, which export a single, uniform set 
of OS abstractions across CPUs of disparate architectures and performance 
characteristics. Access to I/O services such as file systems are 
made transparent via remote message passing, which extends a standard 
microkernel message-passing abstraction to a satellite kernel infrastructure. 
Helios retargets applications to available ISAs by compiling from 
an intermediate language.


http://www.osnews.com/story/22251/Another_Microsoft_Research_Operating_System_Helios

The company had developed the custom OS, Helios to interact with 
the host operating system.

Another new Mobile OS - this time from Samsung. The OS is called 
Bada - http://www.osnews.com/story/22476/Is_There_Room_for_a_New_Mobile_OS_

A lot of negative talk about too meny mobile OS's already but the 
phone market is a lot different than PC Market...with contracts every 
one or two years most people trade in their phone at most every 2 
years and each time re-evaluate the field (some of anyway). This 
gives new guys a chance to enter the fray. If you got somethng unique 
you may gain share quickly.

HTC is still on Win Mobile, but it doesn't matter: They write their 
own UI and just port it from OS to OS. Right now HTC has Win and 
Android phones (the vast majority being Win), but they could drop 
both easily if they want.

Google unveils ChromeOS -

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/releasing-chromium-os-open-source.html
http://www.osnews.com/story/22505/Google_Unveils_Chrome_OS

I guess we'll just have to build a REBOL/OS now.

Viruses, malware, phishing etc are all forcing us to a self healing 
OS like Chrome where everything lives on the cloud.

If the OS is going to handle the security side .. does this mean 
that the browser plugin can afford to worry less about security ??

Graham - Google & co are teh mafia :-) There is no cloud, and there 
is no Chromium OS - they are just fooling us with marketing ;-) The 
cloud is - internet, and storing my data not on my device. Once there 
will be a time, when whole that cloud crap collapses, and you will 
want your local storage once again :-) And Chromium OS? What is that? 
Linux and Chrome browser on top of that ...

In regards to what I said - is there really a difference to security 
model? Because cloud just means - my hardisk is not in my machine, 
but somewhere else. But still there is an OS, apps, and still there 
is a user trying to click on everything you put in front of his eyes 
:-)

This is nice summary from Thom Holwerda - http://www.osnews.com/story/22505/Google_Unveils_Chrome_OS

http://lifehacker.com/5408932/chrome-os-virtual-machine-build-ready-for-your-testing?skyline=true&s=x

ChromeOS as a VMware image

I just had a remark about chrome OS.... its really nothing very new... 
its a 50 year old concept.

All I see here is failure to realize what R3 is about and why it's 
dangerous to clone or fork it. If it were simply a programming language 
then it wouldn't be much of a big deal, because other languages are 
in a similar state of confusing disarray. Programmers are used to 
having to select an implementation of a language. It would be bad, 
but it wouldn't be terrible. REBOL has the luxury of not being in 
this state. Since R3 is an OS-like platform, much more is at stake, 
because people may decide not to be interested in R3's biggest features 
at all.


Extensions and host code opens up a big employment gap that is potentially 
never filled, if people decide impatiently to just clone REBOL, if 
they are unhappy with a particular aspect of R3, because they didn't 
either study it hard enough, don't realize how hard Carl is working 
on servicing exactly those people or just can't wait 2 months for 
that feature to be implemented or this and that bug to be fixed.


Having 10 REBOL alternatives diminishes the much needed authority 
of the original REBOL and it diminishes the authority Carl has over 
the language. REBOL can't grow without that authority. That's also 
why things like Linux isn't doing any better than it is, because 
of massive re-inventing of the same crap over and over again slightly 
differently, because people in that environment haven't had an ultimate 
design authority to work against. We have that here and we must not 
lose it. That is what allows REBOL to grow way beyond other platforms.


But I realize also that such growth is not in many people's interest 
or within their grasp. They just want a turd polished in a different 
color rather than wait for the flower to grow.


This is one case where evolution is not needed. Intelligent design 
is needed.

Then Amiga went thru Escom to Gateway to Amino, to Amiga Inc. (2 
incarnation of Amiga Inc.'s actually - Delaware and Washington). 
Then there was also a community split - some guys started to create 
MorphOS, a competing product.


But maybe what had Gabriele in mind is, that Amiga is almost dead 
due-to incompetence of parent company. The company does not communicate, 
it made some wrong decision (Amiga Anywhere product vs most ppl wanting 
official AmigaOS to evolve). AmigaOS was made second level product, 
and its development was subcontracted to Haage&Partner (OS 3.5, OS 
3.9). Then there was conflict between the companies and H&P refused 
to give away sources. So Hyperion stepped in, and was subcontracted 
to do OS4. The same situation - last month court granted Hyperion 
right to use AmigaOS trademark, and Amiga Inc. can't use it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP-0Nce5oTQ&eurl=http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit&feature=player_embedded


the recently deceased crunchpad ... a browser OS touch driven tablet.

Browser OS touch driven tablet .. now deceased due to internal faults.

Sorry ... http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad-end/


Still this does give us a glimpse on how we might use a browser OS 
...

Taken from OS News (credit: Kroc Camen):


Google's Native Client (NaCl) is a browser technology to deliver 
native x86 binaries to users on Windows, Mac and Linux. Whilst this 
bridges the gap between modern JavaScript speeds and native binaries, 
portability is limited and that's especially important on the web 
where there's greater device diversity than on the desktop. Google 
are announcing that NaCl now also supports x86-64 and ARM. In addition 
to this Google are also announcing the ANGLE project, an open source 
compatibility layer to map WebGL (OpenGL ES for the web) to DirectX 
calls for Windows systems without an OpenGL library.


http://www.osnews.com/story/23021/Native_Client_Portability_Almost_Native_Graphics_Layer_Engine

then tell Carl to finally finish REBOL OS :-)

but the QNX OS is realllly nice.f

Google has been playing around with that idea for a while, kind of 
announced it a year ago actually in the Google Wave group because 
they needed a way to allow people to make money with robots and gadgets. 
Robots and gadgets are both web apps and Chrome OS only runs web 
apps. They would be stupid not to do this, they *need* an app store 
for web apps.

Have you seen Apple's name for the new iPhone OS:  "iOS" !!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc2440

What do you mean by "smart client"? Efika is not only a terminal. 
It can have full OS you can install. It is just that they use something 
like VNC/Citrix aproach, to get you SW you don't have installed physically 
on the machine itself ...

There's a local guy here named Barnaby Jack who showed on Black Hat 
how to remote break in to a cash dispensing machine ... overwrite 
the OS, and to start dispensing out cash!

http://www.returninfinity.com/baremetal.html		Quite interesting OS 
Kernel stuff.

I see OS written in assembly as extermly bad decision for any sane 
kind of scaling ....

the baremetal OS uses a different approach... it launches small tasks 
on one core per process... which is how all dev should be.


all it needs is an api to have two threads to communicate and voila... 
also notice that the apps sit at the same level as the os, so they 
have much more leverage on the HW (with added responsibility)

though its mission is clear... its not the basis for a gui OS... 
you can write one over it I guess.

http://blogs.blackberry.com/2010/09/blackberry-playbook/

Blackberry playbook using QNX as their OS

Its probably a better device than the ipad, in all aspects.  I've 
used ribbon interfaces in some softwares and their use is very smooth. 
 

Our brain immediately uses positional memory, and even if we don't 
see things... we easily remember where they are (right of, left of).


QNX is probably the best OS out there, from the kernel point of view, 
at least. 


I can't see it being irrelevant.  If anything, the fact that they 
beat all the PC manufacturers is nice and, also, their high rating 
in the commercial area, means most business people will relate to 
it much better than the ipad.


For one thing, Black berry (at least try to) address the issues that 
businessmen need.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/4436338/Google-unwraps-Chrome-PCs-too-late-for-holidays

the Chrome store was opened to service the now late Chrome OS PCs

PS3 Hacked Once and For All?
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=94339

Sony sues Geohot and his team over PS3 3.55 jailbreak

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/sony-sues-geohot-and-his-team-over-ps3-3-55-jailbreak-20110112/


Does Sony have a case? Was it ok, when Sony removed the "install 
other OS" feature? Was it legal?

I never liked HP, dunno why :-) I worst thing is, I have no reason 
to hate them :-) But - in big corporate world, I grew-up in IBM land. 
IBM was "frienlie", because of PowerPC = Amiga :-) HP killed Compaq, 
which I liked more. Pity HTC had not enough of money to buy Palm. 
I am not also sure I like the fact that so cool OS as QNX is, is 
owned by RIM. We have BBs here, and I will have one in few months 
too, but BB is being regarded mostly a corporate cell phone.

It is interesting watching someone REALLY use a tablet for "work". 
 One of my lawyers has had an iPad for a while.  I have been telling 
him he can use it with Qtask in a really powerful way, and he finally 
took the 3 minutes that was required to make his life easier.  We 
installed http://readdle.com/(I have been talking to the lead programmer 
for about a year now), and signed into Qtask with it.


Now he can see all his matters, download (and they made it about 
x4 faster than Windows), and now mark up docs, save to Qtask through 
WebDAV.

I personally sitll have no use for a tablet, and I have an iPad which 
I'm about to sell because I simply don't use it.


For me to really use a Tablet I want forward/backwards camera,  10+ 
battery life, G3 and G4 wireless,  an OS that allows me to get to 
the files and Flash.  

(in fact, I''m reminded of how much I hate the iPad and my iPhone 
again LOL).

when I mentionned purity I guess I should have used a more descriptive 
sentence.


I really meant to say, objects, being used as objects.   nowadays, 
OOP (the paradigm) is used for every part of software, even parts 
for which its ill-suited.


OOP is not about the language, its about the logical step after structured 
programming.   grouping things together.


why stop at OOP, they might as well re-introduce the GOTO as a viable 
pattern.  :-)


OOP when its used without all the "advanced" object patterns, is 
incredibly effective... just look at the Amiga OS which was almost 
totally OO in its layout and use while still being coded in C.

They ship with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with the Commodore OS 1.0 to be mailed 
later. I can only imagine how much later.

obviously not counting the time to boot the whole host os :)

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/398891/syllable_os_developer_interview_building_better_operating_system/

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/398892/developer_q_syllable_os/

http://www.osnews.com/story/25122/Interview_Syllable_OS_Lead_Developer_Kaj_de_Vos

could this be the project Carl is working on !? it is an embedded 
linux, its also more TV than computer since it supports only TV outputs. 
 Carl's low memory using Amiga Exec Background would make him a prime 
candidate for working on this project which has to boot Linux and 
allow HD decoding within only 128 MB (os+gpu Shared) RAM .

I should be able to port Red on the Arduino Due (32-bit, 50KB of 
RAM) but the still low memory size might limit its usefulness. OTOH, 
Red/System should be able to work full power there. It should be 
fun to write a new OS for this platform using Red/System.

Yet another mobile OS coming? http://www.osnews.com/comments/25196
... I don't understand Samsung, as they have Bada. Also wondering, 
if HTC buys WebOS ....

RIM finally announced QNX OS for their smartphones too. Their platform 
inlcudes Cascades UI, which should be easy abstraction for developers 
to do some nice stuff:

http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/10/cascades-blackberry/

yes QNX is cool, some years ago I was looking for a microkernel OS 
and have checked QNX. a stable and fast OS combined with a GUI called 
photon.  

one of the cleanest GUI I have seen so far. perhaps MINIX with something 
like photon will evolve some day for a full server/desktop enviroment.

UNIX V6 ported to ANSI C:

http://os-blog.com/xv6-unix-v6-ported-to-ansi-c-x86/

HP paid $1.2bn for the IP and gives it freely to the OS community 
:)

So, we now have apparently the best mobile OS now open source, and 
we have a number of rebol clones appearing ... is there any synergy 
that can be built from this?

No I think that RT will try and have a minimal interaction with host 
OS...that's what I took from the DevCon talks.

Like I wouldn't recommend interfacing with e.g. the Velocity Engine 
on Macs, because it's tied to Mac OS and the Altivec technology found 
in G4 and G5 processors.
REBOL is about cross-platform also. Write-once-run-everywhere.

Of course, currently we have primitive portal, home made, IIS, MSSQL 
and plenty of code ... I expect having SAP or WebSphere portal here 
.... I will think about possibility of integration and making life 
easier :-) It is still preliminary though, as having R3 in dll or 
so form is not enough - you have to somehow wrap other rebol-2-OS 
parts, etc.

so, if we don't wrap upon OS specific printing support imo, then 
we already have our solution - generate html, pdf, postscript, but 
always - do the work twice ...

I need something being tested on older versions of REBOL. So if some 
of you could run this little piece of code and report, what the end 
value is, and what version of REBOL under what OS and on what hardware. 
The piece of code:

x: 1.0 while [(1.0 + (x / 2.0)) > 1.0] [x: x / 2.0]

Brock; To add to what Peter said, it might be hard to say whether 
a port will be much harder, but there will be a far greater potential 
for getting more people involved.  So we are faced with the unknown 
of whether random masses can produce more than a select few; in term 
of better, stronger, faster.  Will opening the OS specific side free 
RT to focus on the core technology or saddle them with testing,  
filtering the various ports and spending all day answering developer 
questions?  Soon to be seen.  I'd hedge on the former and look forward 
to a tide of momentum.

Back in the day, a key feature of R was it running on 40+ OS... 
Seems these days, that's down to 3.  

Hooray.

Never satisfied, Terry? ;-) 40+ was exagerrated too - various Linux 
flavors are just one OS. And remember, with R3 - who wants to port, 
can. REBOL.dll, the only closed part, is platform agnostic code, 
so in order for RT to port, all they need to do (theoretically), 
is to recompile .....

As for me, I initially expected only Windows version of R3. But due 
to certain popularity of OS-X and Linux fans here, other ports are 
already happening. What is wrong with that?

I wonder if anything is going to be done to support the windows tablet 
os

I hope I'm not infringing on a copyright but this quote from the 
commentary of the Halloween I document 

http://catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.htmlexplains that phenomenon 
quite nicely.

<q>

The difference here is, in every release cycle Microsoft always listens 
to its most ignorant customers. This is the key to dumbing down each 
release cycle of software for further assaulting the non-PC population. 
Linux and OS/2 developers, OTOH, tend to listen to their smartest 
customers. This necessarily limits the initial appeal of the operating 
system, while enhancing its long-term benefits. Perhaps only a monopolist 
like Microsoft could get away with selling worse products each generation 
-- products focused so narrowly on the least-technical member of 
the consumer base that they necessarily sacrifice technical excellence. 
Linux and OS/2 tend to appeal to the customer who knows greatness 
when he or she sees it.The good that Microsoft does in bringing computers 
to the non-users is outdone by the curse they bring upon the experienced 
users, because their monopoly position tends to force everyone toward 
the lowest-common-denominator, not just the new users.
</q>

I don't know yet much about the porting process, but so far it looks 
like a "fill in the blanks" process, where you need to provide functionality 
for events, timers, threads, etc. That and the documentation for 
whatever OS runs on the PS3. If Linux can run on it, R3 should work 
fine.

I suppose you go through the OS for that.

What kind of OS's. Are you talking about full fledget operating systems 
or some kind of embedded os