Post B5Jb7YYGKXbUtpAU6K by mntmn@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by mntmn@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #B5Jb7YYGKXbUtpAU6K by mntmn@mastodon.social
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       today lots of shower thoughts about API/ABI design between CPU+MCUs/coprocessors and which layer is the correct one for commands/rpcalls, and the boundary between process and OS (and the origins of the (int)(int argv, char** argc) idea?), and maybe the best way is just buffer/memory copies, which brings me to REST for state sync, and so on. associations and contemporary ideas welcome
       
 (DIR) Post #B5JbDvnqnLm6kYV0jo by promovicz@chaos.social
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       @mntmn I would love if MNT did this with an approach, where users get told what is responsible for what - as a conceptual layer.
       
 (DIR) Post #B5JbPcozC6SvM1befA by mntmn@mastodon.social
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       also i get now why the did the "atom interning" thing in X11, and a similar thing is also done in various interpreters (assigning unique numbers to strings to build a dictionary for further communication), and the weird liminal space between mechanical and human sympathy where you just use 32 bit or 64 bit numbers that can be 4 or 8 characters, and thus small strings, at the same time
       
 (DIR) Post #B5JcbNDX8ShgO8Fog4 by epilys@chaos.social
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       @mntmn Fun fact, since everything in Python is an object, implementations can intern small integers for efficiency (Note that I'm using `is` instead of `==`)$ python3Python 3.13.5 (main, Jun 25 2025, 18:55:22) [GCC 14.2.0] on linux>>> a = 500>>> b = 500>>> a is bFalse>>> a = 100>>> b = 100>>> a is bTrue
       
 (DIR) Post #B5JcgMNTgVGDESHcZs by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @mntmnreminds me how one of the old PDPs had 36-bit words and a 6-bit character set, so you could fit 6 characters in a word, and that's why the oldest C functions have names that fit in 6 characters
       
 (DIR) Post #B5JdO2yJCFlfmsLGwy by cararemixed@mastodon.social
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       @mntmn I often think ABIs are underutilized. So many modern systems avoid ABIs (Rust, WASM, etc) and it hurts the mechanical sympathy at the system level in trade for the tiny bits of flexibility. It's not like ABIs can't be versioned and specified.Instead we are stuck with whatever C does (and doesn't) do and it doesn't help us move past old architectural styles. On the other hand, C is unreasonably effective even with all its faults.
       
 (DIR) Post #B5JfPGGpRCDlELiB5k by Kensan@mastodon.social
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       @mntmn Genode OS might give some insights https://genode.org@genode
       
 (DIR) Post #B5Jjfnl36Ea7XWzOj2 by dotstdy@mastodon.social
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       @mntmn more than 8 chars if you use a restricted subset as well!
       
 (DIR) Post #B5K45dDeu0VHT2xuiG by CyReVolt@mastodon.social
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       @mntmn I've been playing with the idea of graph based system APIs lately, kinda like GraphQL.
       
 (DIR) Post #B5K4Ec68ROReb0jGoi by CyReVolt@mastodon.social
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       @mntmn 4/8 byte IDs is also what RISC-V SBI uses, and also UEFI/ACPI in many places.I chose it for yet another vector graphics language, too.