[wplug-bsd] Fw: OT: Beastie makes a cameo appearance on apple.com.

[Mark Dalrymple]

> I think the problem is that a microkernel is too much effort to develop,
> debug, and maintain, and you really don't gain a lot by using one, unless
> you're a developer.

Performance actually is the hard part.  Communication between the
different stuff plugged into the microkernel takes time, and at that
level in the OS, a couple of percent here and there can be
significant.  The BSD subsystem and mach are pretty tightly integrated
in OS X, so it's not possible to run Linux and OS X (fer instance) on
the same kernel.  Technically it would have been really cool to do
that, but not quite in their target demographic.

One of the Apple enginerds described the way gdb works under the hood
on OS, with the interplay between the mach and bsd layers.  ptrace()
is only used to set up bsd/unix type stuff like signals, and then mach
ports are used for invading the process and poking around.  Kinda cool, 
twisted stuff.

Cheers,
++Mark Dalrymple.  markd at badgertronics.com.  http://badgertronics.com
 "for instance, many programmer. they do not like the SQL. why SQL when
  an object is the way to program? IF you like the style involving
  tight OO, try wang-murmur? ! lol."
   -- Oleg Yoytmarr