On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:37:09 +0000, Harry Vennik wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I announced this project just a little more than one year ago, but then I had to stop it right away because of some personal problems. Recently I picked it up again, but to really gain any progress, I really need help from one or more real D gurus, as there is one very essential problem I cannot solve myself.

You might want to take a look at this other project that sounds very
similar:
http://www.slate-project.org/start

> 
> I'd like to build my OS on top of the OKL4 microkernel from Open Kernel Labs. That microkernel is written in C and C++, but in my OS, everything running on top of it should be in D. (Although it might be that I use some existing servers at first, and replace them by D-implementations later.)
> 
> Now I'd like to have automated code generation for IPC, without using IDL. I.e. i want to be able to simply code a D interface and then have some way to expose that interface to be called through IPC, without the need to write the actual IPC code over and over again for each interface. Ideally the IPC code would be compatible to code generated from IDL through magpie, as such would allow D-clients to call C-servers and vice versa, this is not a requirement however.
> 
> Currently I feel like this is the most difficult part to code of the whole OS (maybe just because I do have quite some knowledge about OSes, but almost nothing about compilers and code generation...)
> 
> Anyone interested to help me to get this done?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Harry
> 
> == Quote from John Reimer (terminal.node@gmail.com)'s article
>> On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:36:26 -0800, Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website
>> For Email) wrote:
>> > Harry Vennik wrote:
>> >> Is there anyone here who is interested in working with me to get that project going, and help by contributing in the development of a specification and/or in implementation of those (including
> PoC
>> >> coding)?
>> >
>> > Just in case nobody has mentioned it: a small and elegant UNIX kernel to use as a source of inspiration is Minix 3 (http://www.minix3.org/).
>> >
>> > I've seen Tanenbaum talking about it, and Minix 3 is a fresh new approach to OS design featuring high modularity: the kernel itself boasts only 4000 lines of code. It would be interesting to see how that translates in D.
>> >
>> > Andrei
>> Very interesting!
>> I'll download the svn source and check it out. :) -JJR

I suggest starting a new thread with this, so people can see it!

Graham St Jack Wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:37:09 +0000, Harry Vennik wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I announced this project just a little more than one year ago, but then I had to stop it right away because of some personal problems. Recently I picked it up again, but to really gain any progress, I really need help from one or more real D gurus, as there is one very essential problem I cannot solve myself.
> 
> You might want to take a look at this other project that sounds very
> similar:
> http://www.slate-project.org/start
> 

It has some similarity indeed, but a very big difference is that they plan to use the Linux kernel, which is a monolithic kernel. As mentioned, OKL4 is a microkernel. At the higher level I might be able to co-operate with Slate if other design decisions are less far apart.

> > 
> > I'd like to build my OS on top of the OKL4 microkernel from Open Kernel Labs. That microkernel is written in C and C++, but in my OS, everything running on top of it should be in D. (Although it might be that I use some existing servers at first, and replace them by D-implementations later.)
> > 
> > Now I'd like to have automated code generation for IPC, without using IDL. I.e. i want to be able to simply code a D interface and then have some way to expose that interface to be called through IPC, without the need to write the actual IPC code over and over again for each interface. Ideally the IPC code would be compatible to code generated from IDL through magpie, as such would allow D-clients to call C-servers and vice versa, this is not a requirement however.
> > 
> > Currently I feel like this is the most difficult part to code of the whole OS (maybe just because I do have quite some knowledge about OSes, but almost nothing about compilers and code generation...)
> > 
> > Anyone interested to help me to get this done?
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Harry
> > 
> > == Quote from John Reimer (terminal.node@gmail.com)'s article
> >> On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:36:26 -0800, Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website
> >> For Email) wrote:
> >> > Harry Vennik wrote:
> >> >> Is there anyone here who is interested in working with me to get that project going, and help by contributing in the development of a specification and/or in implementation of those (including
> > PoC
> >> >> coding)?
> >> >
> >> > Just in case nobody has mentioned it: a small and elegant UNIX kernel to use as a source of inspiration is Minix 3 (http://www.minix3.org/).
> >> >
> >> > I've seen Tanenbaum talking about it, and Minix 3 is a fresh new approach to OS design featuring high modularity: the kernel itself boasts only 4000 lines of code. It would be interesting to see how that translates in D.
> >> >
> >> > Andrei
> >> Very interesting!
> >> I'll download the svn source and check it out. :) -JJR
>