Re: [colorforth] New Linux 4word

[Dr Nick Maroudas <alice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phillip Eaton wrote:

> Albert's thoughts are so right. To me, there seems to be a number of genius hackers 
> using colorForth, but no-one's co-ordinating anything.
>
> I know this sort of agrees with some of Chuck's philosophies, but in my view, with 
> collaboration and idea sharing, a whole lot more could be achieved.
>
> Developers rarely enjoy documentating stuff, but to me, the develepment is only half of 
> the overall package. The other half is documenting it and collating it with everyone 
> else's development to produce a sum greater than the sum of the parts.
>
> (snip)
> It's a real shame to see so much talent and innovation go to waste due to 
> inaccesibility.
>
> Phillip Eaton
> London, UK
>
>  
Nick here:  As they say, documentation is like castor oil - it must be good for you 
           because it tastes so bad.  As a convicted individualist I love CF and am not complaining; but as Joe Public, with little to offer and even less time to offer it in, I would hope that (as a result of communal effort a la Linux) Terry's one-floppy and similar projects would eventually mature into something like Knoppix:     
a beautifully crafted compendium of useful programs on one CD, that runs in RAM without disturbing your existing OS (just like CF, but with much more backup).  
On the other hand, the "accessibility" of Knoppix and similar modern OS depends on "transparency" and "the user illusion" namely, on hiding from the user what the computer is actually doing.  

As a start, Philip, perhaps we could document what PCs you (and others) have tried and
failed with, and what loading methods (other than floppy) have been used with success.
They say, "The devil is in the detail", because details are so boring.  Hence the success of popular OSs like Linux:  they have a strong stomach, and are not ashamed to "waste" a big memory by swallowing (and conveniently hiding from the user) huge amounts of boring, redundant detail.  

Regards

Nick



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