Oxide and Friends

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: February 14th, 2022Breakthroughs DelayedWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for February 14th, 2022In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on February 14th included Chris DiBona, Tom Lyon, Ian, MattSci, Jeff Nickoloff, Ahmed, Tim Burnham and vint serp. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Adam’s tweetSteven Johnson (2021) Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer book[@6:00](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=360) Pasteurization 1850’s swill milk scandal wiki[@10:25](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=625) Automotive safety Three-point seat belt wikiWindshield safety glass wikiRalph Nader (1965) Unsafe at Any Speed book[@16:25](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=985) Bryan proposes a rubric, are multiple teams racing? Walter Isaacson (2021) The Code Breaker bookEdward Jenner, 1796 smallpox vaccine[@24:32](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=1472) DTrace Compact C Type Format CTF[@27:25](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=1645) Docker OverlayFSBryan’s Papers We Love talk on Jails and Zones video ~100mins1963 Honeywell H200 wikiBryan on harware virtualization history video ~10mins, also here[@37:22](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=2242) The Greate Stirrup Controversy wikiSteve Kemper (2005) Reinventing the Wheel: A Story of Genius, Innovation, and Grand Ambition bookJevons paradox wiki[@47:51](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=2871) Wikipedia Bryan gets worked up at a dinner partyCliff Clavin (Cheers character) wiki[@52:54](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=3174) Hello Chris Wordle trolling [@57:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyGgkBxz-mg&t=3460s) Audio editing[@1:01:03](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=3663) JSON[@1:02:22](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=3742) Chris on HBO Silicon Valley[@1:07:05](https://youtu.be/MyGgkBxz-mg?t=4025) Antikythera mechanism wikiIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: February 7th, 2022I Know This! (Purpose-built systems with general-purpose guts)We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for February 7th, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on February 7th included MattSci, Ian, Matt Ranney and Ken. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Calendly tweet context[@11:47](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=707) Hacker News post[@18:15](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=1095) James Garfield shooting[@21:29](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=1289) Adam’s story about customers taking on heroic interventions themselves, learning the value of logging all commands, and digging through email chains for paydirt Developed “three strikes” rule, focus on fixing the proximate issues (and defer general health boosters for another time) so as not to lose the faith of the customer[@27:35](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=1655) E-cache parity error[@33:38](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=2018) Support personnel remaining calm in the face of unknown damage[@41:22](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=2482) Outages, postmortem, software as a service and public cloud providers Vendor transparency or lack thereof[@48:28](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=2908) Ken: transparency as part of legal compliance?MITRE CVE List of publicly disclosed cybersecurity vulnerabilities[@52:45](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=3165) Adventures in shady pay to play industry events Fixed raffles[@1:01:30](https://youtu.be/WsvJT6i_atw?t=3690) “We never lost anyone’s data but it took some long vacations” Incident where someone corrupted kernel data structuresAdam pulls a fast onePaul Newman and Robert Redford in (1973) The Sting movieDifferent ways to structure support contractsmdb -kw, the w is load bearingIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: January 24th, 2022Taxonomy of HypeWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for January 24th, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on January 24th included MattSci, Todd Gamblin, Aaron Goldman and Tom Lyon. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:The tweet about the topic: Johannes Klingebiel’s (2022) The five Levels of Hype taxonomy[@8:24](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=504) Roko’s Basilisk (slate.com)[@10:21](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=621) Cloud Computing[@12:09](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=729) Mobile, Wi-Fi (introduced in 1997) Adam broke his hand, but can still type dtrace with one hand[@15:14](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=914) Java Write once run anywhereCross platform graphical interfacesWindows NT[@17:47](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=1067) Storage technology DedupZFS copies setting and redundant_metadataInfiniBand, iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER), SCSI RDMA Protocol (SRP)[@26:15](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=1575) 3D XPoint (Intel Optane) wikiHP Memristor FAQHP “The Machine” HP research’s pure hype marketing pitchThe (absolutely incredible) Star Trek crossover ad > I’m gonna provide you the emotion of a revolution, but not the technical detail to > support it, not yet, but it’s coming.[@31:02](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=1862) Segway (wiki) Dean Kamen wikiDecoder Ring podcast (June 2021) Who Killed the Segway? ~40mins slate.com, Apple podcasts2001 Good Morning America Segway unveiling, Diane Sawyer is underwhelmed > I’m tempted to say “that’s it??” (nervous laughter) > But that can’t be it!?[@34:29](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=2069) Maglev, Cold fusionWalter Isaacson (2021) The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race bookHuman Genome Project wikiHype booms and bustsTodd’s story on working on fusion at a national lab, and the nature of gaining funding for large projects[@45:30](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=2730) Rust[@48:43](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=2923) DTrace[@52:14](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=3134) Nanotechnology K. Eric Drexler wikiExpert Systems, AR/VR[@56:23](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=3383) Chatbots Dan Olson (Jan 2022) Line Goes Up - The Problem with NFTs ~2hr video (worth every minute)[@59:11](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=3551) Serverless Itanium IA-64, Very long instruction word VLIWFibre Channel over Ethernet FCoE, ATA over Ethernet AoE > A solution in search of a problem[@1:06:50](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=4010) Taligent wikiTom Hormby (2014) Pink: Apple’s First Stab at a Modern Operating System postBe Inc wikiBryan’s Be whiteboard story[@1:13:47](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=4427) Docker Monetizing open source[@1:20:28](https://youtu.be/qrWgmkBfn9s?t=4828) 5GIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: January 10th, 2022Flying Blind with Peter RobisonWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for January 10th, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Peter Robison.Other speakers on January 10th included MattSci and Simeon Miteff. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:[@5:02](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=302) Peter on Japan Air Lines Flight 123Boeing 777 > Bryan: The things I am the most proud of are the things I’ve worked with other people on, > when a team does something that feels beyond an individual’s grasp.[@12:25](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=745) Peter’s history covering aerospace McDonnell Douglas[@15:53](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=953) Jack Welch, corporate culture Investors over customersJohn Godson 1975 The Rise and Fall of the DC-10 book[@24:12](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=1452) Questionable morals from execsJohn Newhouse 1982 The Sporty Game book[@27:41](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=1661) When did it become clear that the 737 MAX was problematic? Lion Air Flight 610Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System MCASEthiopian Airlines Flight 302Shifting blame, public messaging vs behind closed doors opinion forming[@36:31](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=2191) Why pilots had no training (or knowledge of) the MCAS system[@39:23](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=2363) Angle of Attack indicator[@48:48](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=2928) MCAS software, writing safety critical computer code [@53:19](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=3199) “Blood on the seats”[@58:48](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=3528) Matt asks about “fly-by-wire” and MCAS. “Optional” safety features[@1:08:04](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=4084) Testing safety, lack of technical scrutiny[@1:12:31](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=4351) Simeon asks about the FAA’s relationship with Boeing[@1:15:05](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=4505) Bryan: what are the lessons for other disciplines? Peter: Valuing employee views. Tolerating bad news.Adam: The engineering culture at Boeing was so arduous to build, and so quick to corrode[@1:18:39](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=4719) Matt: relationship to F-35? Military vs commercial[@1:23:23](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=5003) Gene Kim: CEO congressional testimony[@1:26:22](https://youtu.be/q6i9NPslfE4?t=5182) Passing certifications, alternatives to MCASIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: January 3rd, 2022Predictions 2022We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for January 3rd, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest on January 3rd included was tech prediction expert and noted Red Sox fan Steven O’Grady.Below is a table of the oracles and their predictions: (If you made predictions, please submit a PR to add or clarify yours) Futurist 1 year 3 year 6 year | @openlabbott 47:15 | Discord are going to annoy their userbase. | We’ll finally get a RISC V server in a datacenter, in some shape or form. | Email goes the way of the landline. | @MattSci2 1:10:05 | The framework laptop company will be unsuccessful. Existing laptops are not substantially different; with some retooling. | One major FPGA vendor will have a completely open toolchain for high end FPGAs. | At least 1 RISC-V supercomputer in the Top 500. | @tomk_ 1:16:45 | At least one of the hyperscalers will become startlingly good at partnering. | Stablecoins will become regulated. | The biggest datacenter server provider (outside the hyperscalers) will be a company that hasn’t yet shipped its first server. | @tinco 1:18:57 | Multiple companies will have demonstrated a AGI (one shot machine learning system). It’s not gonna be useful for anything, but I think the problem is less hard than many critics think it is and several companies/organizations are actually going to be showing the first versions of these systems. | Drones autonomously flying around private properties will be a common thing. Factory managers, powerlines inspectors, large building sites etc. will have commonly available and affordable options to inspect or patrol their properties. | Web3 will actually happen, but not in the way it’s currently being talked about. In 6 years time bots will have improved to the point that they can not be warded off the major platforms (or any platforms) and will make the web absolutely unusable due to them disrupting all established crowd funded moderation systems. A new paradigm will have to emerge that fundamentally changes how we use the web (thus web3), so that we can still derive value from it. | Ben Stoltz 1:24:40 | Smart glasses become a viable alternative for computer monitors youtube. People who used to look away from their phones to have their own thoughts, and are now using smart glasses in real life situations, are subjected to an ads vs. attention “Tragedy of the commons”. As costs per unit decrease leading to ubiquity, this forces a modern-day “Highway Beautification Act” to legislate Ad Blocking. | A significant percentage of commercial office space will be converted to housing. | The best AIs have emotional problems. We don’t really know how they work. AI specialists are more therapists than programmers. | @kelseyhightower 1:29:30 | This year will be more of the same, competition to define the new normal as the pandemic winds down. | Pandemic-era solutions will backfire; crypto-currencies will give governments an excuse to track all actual spending. “We will give you the transparency, but not the kind you wanted.” | Technology will be recognized as sovereignty like money and land used to be. Governments will be wary of using technology from weak allies or competitors. Local hardware manufacturing, growth of local university training, etc. Possibly manifesting as national protectionism, or a reprise of the space-race. Open source will be the default model. | @orangecms 1:53:45 | a major OS from China emerges | high performance computing from Europe | ARM no longer as relevant | @ahl 1:58:00 | web3 is done; we’re not talking about it, it’s not a thing, we don’t use the term and we only vaguely recall what it was supposed to mean. | Productivity per watt becomes a highly important metric in computing. Tools tell us about our power use. We spin workloads up and down depending on power cost and availability. | AWS offers RISC-V instance types. | @AaronDGoldman 1:07:14 | Single-node computing: people will realize that that distributed computing has a lot of overhead and that one server can do a lot of work. This will lead people to people doing business analytics jobs by pulling all their data to a single a computer and doing the calculation, getting the result 100x faster than splitting data over many computers. | Microservices inlining: taking a lot of microservices and statically linking them together. This will enable calling functions without network overhead, making things run 100x faster. | We will start do scaling properly. Instead of thinking “how can I make this big data and scale up to infinity”, we will try to get the most out of single node. Only once a single node has been pushed to its limit will we scale up to first a rack, then a datacenter, and then the world. | @dancrossnyc 2:01:10

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: December 13th, 2021The Pragmatism of HubrisWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for December 13th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on December 13th included special guests Cliff Biffle and Steve Klabnik as well as Laura Abbott, Rick Altherr, James Tucker, Simeon Miteff and MattSci. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Hubris and Humility context tweetCliff’s written version of his Hubris talkHubris Fervently Anticipated Questions FAQ[@8:07](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=487) Prehistory of Hubris, Cliff’s storyProject Loon wiki[@14:23](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=863) Did Cliff know what he wanted to build at Oxide?Tock embedded OSQNX Unix-like real-time OS[@17:55](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=1075) Laura on evaluating existing OS options[@22:03](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=1323) Alignment of values and goals with other projects Bryan’s 2017 Platform as a Reflection of Values video ~30mins[@25:00](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=1500) Steve: convincing low-level people that they are allowed to have nice thingsRISC-V ROPI/RWPI Specification (Embedded PIC)Position-independent code wiki[@28:59](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=1739) Secure FPGAs?Laura Abbott’s Exploiting Undocumented Hardware Blocks in the LPC55S69 write-upAnd DEF CON talk with Rick Altherr[@32:20](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=1940) Early implementation, journal clubJonathan Shapiro 2003 Vulnerabilities in synchronous IPC designs paperHeiser and Elphinstone’s L4 Microkernels: The Lessons from 20 Years of Research and Deployment paper[@37:20](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=2240) Microkernels. MachL4 microkernel family wikiJochen LiedtkeBryan decides not to go to graduate schoolFuchsia OS[@51:09](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=3069) Origin of Humility. Debugging TockilatorSemihosting[@1:03:15](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=3795) Archive files, self-descriptive binaries, debugging[@1:10:33](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=4233) CORRECTION Windows does have a package manager: Windows Package Manager was released May 13, 2020[@1:14:15](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=4455) Build tools and build systems cargo xtask[@1:18:59](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=4739) DWARF Ada language[@1:25:01](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=5101) Tock: Rust kernel, C userspace IDLOzymandias[@1:32:28](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=5548) build.rs build scripts Simeon’s story, code generationSoftware-hardware codesign[@1:52:14](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=6734) Conway’s law[@1:54:30](https://youtu.be/cypmufnPfLw?t=6870) Diagnosing problems, failing tasks, formatting error messagesJoe Rozner and Rick Altherr getting Hubris and Humility running on a STM32, tweet from Dec 1, and video ~2hrsIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: December 6th, 2021Tales from the Bringup LabWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for December 6th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on December 6th included special guests Nathanael Huffman, Eric Aasen, as well as Rick Altherr, MattSci, Dan Cross and Steve Tuck. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:[@5:57](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=357) Lay of the land[@6:58](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=418) Power[@11:14](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=674) Matt: what goes in the middle of the board?[@14:32](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=872) iCE40 FPGA[@21:20](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=1280) Taking meticulous notes[@25:41](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=1541) Power-on sequencing Using service processor flash to store FPGA bitstreamSolder reworkinclude_bytes[@32:37](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=1957) “Zombie board” Flying probe video ~2minsThermal cameras[@46:41](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=2801) Main chip power-on Level shifters, I2CGoogly Eye of Sauron[@55:24](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=3324) SPI wiggles (Serial Peripheral Interface) Precious cargo in a rented minivan[@1:02:00](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=3720) Value of record keepingPower management[@1:09:49](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=3720) “Valley of despair”, infinite reset loop SP3 socketMagnet wire connecting to a pin, see picture with dime for scale > Book on ENIAC quote: when things wouldn’t work, frustrated workers > referred to the machine as the MANIAC.[@1:24:10](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=5050) Eric’s big breakthrough > Boom! SPI wiggles[@1:30:59](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=5459) “The next day we had a demo!” Yet another hurdle..DuPont wire[@1:39:39](https://youtu.be/lhji-kP3Lhk?t=5979) “These are the stories that don’t get told..”If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: November 29th, 2021The Sidecar SwitchWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for November 29th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Arjen Roodselaar; other speakers on November 29th included Rick Altherr, Simeon Miteff, MattSci, Jason Ozolins, Thomas and Edwin Peer. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:[@3:04](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=184) Arjen’s announcement about the rack switchCadence Allegro PCB editor[@11:35](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=695) Should we do our own switch? “We’re just going to tweak existing designs…”Intel Tofino 2 pageBarefoot Networks wikiP4 language wiki[@24:07](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=1447) What makes this chip a beast?[@33:24](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=2004) Cable backplane, sleds[@37:11](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=2231) Sidecar[@38:52](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=2332) Management network (out of band) NC-SI network controller sideband interface wiki > Rick: A lot of the BMC style management functionality just > kinda got tacked on to PC systems.[@48:36](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=2916) SDN software-defined networking wikiNCI National Computational Infrastructure (Australia) wikiNetwork function virtualization wiki[@55:12](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=3312) The tofino simulator[@59:51](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=3591) Trust model, root of trust, service processor[@1:02:31](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=3751) Can the switch run independent of the PCIe host?[@1:08:35](https://youtu.be/yl24yHlLRy0?t=4115) The journey. The time scale of these signaling components. Heat sinks and practice boardsHappy Hanukkah!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: November 22nd, 2021Talking TurkeysWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for November 22nd, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on November 22nd included Rick Altherr, Ian, Simeon Miteff, MattSci, Nahum Shalman, Jason Ozolins, pgray, Bill Blum, Matt Ranney, Matt Campbell, FesterCluck, Rahul Saxena and Bartz the Man. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:[@4:26](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=266) Thanksgiving[@6:13](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=373) David Tolnay twitter and githubProjects SerdeAnyhowthiserrorLondon hip hop musician Loyle Carner[@8:16](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=496) Adam is thankful for: ANTLR parser generatorpestusdt DTrace probes[@11:35](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=695) Bryan is thankful for: build.rs Rust build scriptsSaleae logic analyzers[@16:33](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=993) Ian: YubiKey[@19:09](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=1149) Matt Campbell: open source, Python accessibility Windows libraries from Chapel Hill[@23:52](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=1432) FesterCluck: Nodejs[@26:03](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=1563) Patrick: RabbitMQ[@28:19](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=1699) Nahum: WireGuard and Tailscale[@32:04](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=1924) Jason: truss by Roger Faulkner[@37:37](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=2257) Rahul: tldp.org Linux documentation[@42:11](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=2531) Simeon: sigrok, PulseView, Anyhow, thiserror[@44:35](https://github.com/dtolnay/thiserror) Adam: QMK, Magic Lantern by Trammell Hudson (twitter)[@47:36](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=2856) Matt: eBPF, (wiki)[@54:59](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=3299) MattSci: CUDA, EthernetGPSJohn Bloom (2016) Eccentric Orbits bookDifferential GPSBeiDou Chinese satellites, GLONASS Russian satellites, and Galileo European Union satellites[@1:09:20](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=4160) Bartz: grep[@1:10:30](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=4230) Rick: Ghidra reverse engineering tool Interactive Disassembler IDA[@1:12:28](https://youtu.be/U10SuAHV8kQ?t=4348) Bill: Fastest Fourier Transform in the West FFTW, and gnuplot > I’m thankful that everywhere I look there’s always something that hits my > sense of wonder. That’s the thing I love about working in this industry.Adam appreciates spreadsheets as tools for analysisIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: November 15th, 2021The Wrath of KahnWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for November 15th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on November 15th included Dan Cross, Tom Lyon, Antranig Vartanian, Mat Trudel, Gabe Rudy, Simeon Miteff and bch. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Severo Ornstein (2002) Computing in the Middle Ages: A View from the Trenches 1955-1983 bookTX-2 computer in 1958LINC Laboratory INstrument Computer in 1962Wesley ClarkIMP[@6:21](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=381) Quote on paternity of ARPANET and the Internet[@7:51](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=471) Bryan meets Knuth… briefly SOAP[@20:00](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=1200) Quote from oral history of Bob Taylor (2008)[@21:37](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=1297) Dan meets Knuth?[@25:23](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=1523) The lone inventor[@26:40](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=1600) The patent race with Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray (wiki) “Inventor” of email[@30:49](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=1849) Fathering and parenting (pioneers and settlers)Any lone inventors?Credit where credit is due. Teams as more than the sum of the parts. Turing Awards[@35:49](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=2149) Science papers, teams[@37:14](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=2234) Andy van Dam (wiki) “Hypertext ’87 Keynote” address“Reflections on a Half Century of Hypertext” (2019) ~100mins presentationRon Minnich (On the Metal podcast)[@39:11](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=2351) Dennis Klatt and DECtalkDECtalk DTC01 used a 68000 and a TI 32010 DSP; DECtalk DTC03 used a 80186 and the same TI 32010. mameDoug Engelbart (wiki)[@44:37](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=2677) Who’s going to lead the charge? Michael Stonebraker (wiki)Seeing things through[@49:23](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=2963) bch: communications and crediting[@50:53](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=3053) DTrace, ZFS[@53:15](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=3195) Mat: The Dream Machine M. Mitchell Waldrop (2001) “The Dream Machine: JCR Licklider and the Revolution that Made Computing Personal” bookDARPA, private public research funding[@56:57](https://youtu.be/oft5i5RzIC8?t=3417) The hero narrative sells wellIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: November 8th, 2021Supercomputers, Cray, and How Sun Picked SGI’s PocketWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for November 8th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on November 8th included Tom Lyon, Shahin Khan, Darryl Ramm, Dan Cross, Courtney Malone, MattSci, Aaron Goldman, Simeon Miteff, and Jason Ozolins. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Bryan’s tweet about George Brown’s recommending “The Supermen”Charles Murray (1997) “The Supermen: The story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer” book[@1:28](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=88) Tom’s story meeting Boris Tom’s tweet on meeting Boris BabayanElbrus computers[@9:27](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=567) Supercomputers and power[@15:16](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=916) Cray designs Engineering Research Associates wikiControl Data Corporation wiki, CDC 1604[@20:36](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=1236) ETA Systems wiki[@23:57](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=1437) On to the next big thing Steve ChenCray X-MP[@29:37](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=1777) Super computers as one-offs National Computational Infrastructure in Australia, NCIGallium arsenideGPGPU[@33:47](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=2027) Shahin on interconnects Jason on failure caused by a stormCray C90[@41:06](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=2466) Courtney on bespoke toolchains and systems[@42:42](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=2562) Influence of Cray on Sun 1996 Sun to purchase Cray Business Systems Division, hpcwireFloating Point Systems Inc wiki > Shahin: SGI really had no use for this system. They should have just killed it.[@50:10](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=3010) Origin story of DTrace (2006 article) E10k[@56:14](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=3374) Thinking Machines Corp, wiki[@57:36](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=3456) Seymour Cray Les Davis “The ultimate team player” write up2010 Oral history of Les Davis pdf[@1:00:08](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=3608) Business Systems Division history, long road to Starfire[@1:04:20](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=3860) SGI and Sun early history Non-uniform memory access NUMA[@1:10:40](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=4240) Cray T3EMassively parallel MPP[@1:12:33](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=4353) E10k stories boo.com wiki[@1:18:37](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=4717) Cray, spooks, pop count[@1:20:45](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=4845) Chen Cray X-MP and Y-MPSequent[@1:24:04](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=5044) An engineer sees his defunct machine being scrapped[@1:26:27](https://youtu.be/y07PyBrrzMw?t=5187) Jason’s story of capacitors popping off the board The Capacitor plagueIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: November 1st, 2021On Code ReviewWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for November 1st, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on November 1st included Kendall Morgan, Edwin Peer, Ryan Zezeski, Ian, Joshua Hoeflich, ZK Miyavi, Jason Ozolins, Nick Sherron and Austin Wise. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Context tweetKendall Morgan (2021) “Thoughts on Code Review” essay[@3:57](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=237) Adam’s story, first code review at Sun[@6:32](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=392) Choosing a reviewer[@9:43](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=583) Unblocking others. Empathy in feedback. Asking questions, learning.[@15:43](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=943) Bryan reviewing Jeff Bonwick’s code at Sun Odd working hoursScreaming Red Chairs[@19:47](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=1187) In-person code review vs digitized. Tools[@24:29](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=1469) Not just finding bugs. Darin’s Law[@25:59](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=1559) Adam’s story around a bug in a big diff, tracepoints in the kernel[@32:28](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=1948) Adam’s favorite useless code review comment Marginally useful changes, what to do with multiple good alternativesMatters of style and taste > Joe Kowalski: Is there a problem with this code, or is it not > implemented the way you would implement it?[@38:41](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=2321) Ian on tools. Different languages, mediums. loom for short video messages[@44:37](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=2677) Tools designed for specific tasks. GerritCode review policies[@49:31](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=2971) Jason’s story about HPE project with SCSI bug. Patch submitted to kernel group[@54:59](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=3299) Bryan’s story about an n^3 algorithm in SCSI target code[@56:55](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=3415) Rust compiler, resource awareness, error paths Often more modular than C coderust-analyzer, seeing inferred types[@1:01:15](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=3675) Joshua’s experience with in-person reviews, whiteboarding Working arm-in-arm with peopleSourcegraph Dev Tool Time videos[@1:05:21](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=3921) How do you scale quality code review in bigger teams? Culture of code review at a company[@1:07:15](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=4035) How to convince your team of the value of code review? Review can catch bugsCross team knowledge, bus factorSpeed in the short term vs speed in the long term[@1:14:39](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=4479) Ian on cultivating organizational review practices[@1:16:32](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=4592) Austin’s story on assuaging management fears around new practices Joshua: communication, writing, and accountabilityWhat code don’t we review?Code review as quality check[@1:23:55](https://youtu.be/JZdXDyeSvtc?t=5035) Engineering product quality, not always obviously of benefit to the business Skipping code reviews to show quality consequencesAdopting code review practices, incrementallyIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: October 25th, 2021Coder’s BlockWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for October 25th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on October 25th included Brigid Gaffikin, Tom Lyon, MattSci, Simeon Miteff, Edwin Peer, Ian, Nima Johari, Matt Campbell, Joshua Hoeflich, Bill, Ariel Machado, and Kendall Morgan. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:BattleTris stories[@10:15](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=615) Writer’s block, flow (instigating tweet)National Novel Writing Month NaNoWriMoFlow wiki[@16:54](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=1014) “If you’re just problem solving, you can’t have writers block” Many degrees of freedomShiny new object[@20:39](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=1239) Remedies for writer’s block? Decide if you’re looking for tactics or strategy; is it small technical issues or not?Tactics: Hone in on ‘the craft’ – work on the languageStrategy: Is this going to reach an audience/get an agent?Write a scene from a different character’s PoV; write a vignetteThis sounds like prototyping in softwareIf you’re stuck on debugging, write some debug infrastructure[@24:16](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=1456) Doing something else entirely Brigid: ceramics, sound walks[@27:43](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=1663) Not everything is burnout[@34:13](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=2053) Software analogies to writer’s techniques[@36:04](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=2164) Personal productivity obsession Writer Emergency Pack by John August, site“You’ve got to get back to the coal face. You’ve got to finish it.”[@41:00](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=2460) Does Rust make this indecision worse? Pressure to find the “right” way[@43:56](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=2636) Arthur Whitney (wiki) > The best analog for software is poetryPandemic life, collaboration and conferences[@51:51](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=3111) Hallway track. Software is collaborative but ultimately programming is a solitary act Nimo’s experience, it’s all collaborative. Code review, art[@59:36](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=3576) Cliff code reviews, how to do good reviews Lack of code reviewers for Rust at Google[@1:04:16](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=3856) Writer’s groups, different focuses[@1:08:04](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=4084) Grad school during pandemic, gather.town - video chat platform for virtual interactions[@1:11:54](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=4314) Goals, take the wins that you can, boundaries between work life and home lifeKendall Morgan “Thoughts on Code Reviews” blog post[@1:17:38](https://youtu.be/QGs5hlH6cLk?t=4658) Bill’s experience switching things up, and enjoying computing againWrap up tweetIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: October 18th, 2021Dijkstra’s TweetstormWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for October 18th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on October 18th included Edwin Peer, Dan Cross, Ryan Zezeski, Tom Lyon, Aaron Goldman, Simeon Miteff, MattSci, Nate, raycar5, night, and Drew Vogel. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Dijkstra’s 1975 “How do we tell truths that might hurt?” EWD 498 tweet > PL/1 > belongs more to the problem set than to the solution setThe use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offenceAPL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums - [@3:08](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=188) Languages affect the way you think It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. - [@4:33](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=273) Adam’s Perl story - The Camel Book, not to be confused with OCaml - “You needed books to learn how to do things” - CGI - [@9:04](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=544) Adam meets Larry Wall - [@11:59](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=719) Meeting Dennis Ritchie - “We were very excited; too excited some would say…” - [@15:04](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=904) Effects of learning languages, goals of a language, impediments to learning - Roger Hui of APL and J fame, RIP. - Accessible as a language value - Microsoft Pascal, Turbo Pascal - Scratch - LabVIEW - [@25:31](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=1531) Nate’s experience - Languages have different audiences - [@27:18](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=1638) Human languages - The Esperanto con-lang - Tonal langages - Learning new and different programming languages - [@37:06](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=2226) Adam’s early JavaScript (tweet) - <SCRIPT LANGUARE="JavaScript"> circa 1996 - [@44:10](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=2650) Learning from books, sitting down and learning by typing out examples - How do you learn to program in a language? - Zed Shaw on learning programming through spaced repetition blog - Rigid advice on how to learn - ALGOL 68, planned successor to ALGOL 60 - ALGOL 60, was, according to Tony Hoare, “An improvment on nearly all of its successors” - [@50:41](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=3041) Where does Rust belong in the progression of languages someone learns? Rust is what happens when you’ve got 25 years of experience with C++, and you remove most of the rough edges and make it safer? - “Everyone needs to learn enough C, to appreciate what it is and what it isn’t” - [@52:45](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=3165) “I wish I had learned Rust instead of C++” - [@53:35](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=3215) Adam: Brown revisits intro curriculum, teaching Scheme, ML, then Java - Adam learning Rust back in 2015 (tweet) “First Rust Program Pain (So you can avoid it…)” Tom: There’s a tension in learning between the people who hate magic and want to know how everything works in great detail, versus the people who just want to see something useful done. It’s hard to satisfy both. - [@1:00:02](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=3602) Bryan coming to Rust - “Learn Rust with entirely too many linked lists” guide - Rob Pike interview Its concurrency is rooted in CSP, but evolved through a series of languages done at Bell Labs in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Newsqueak, Alef, and Limbo. - [@1:03:01](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=3781) Debugging Erlang processes. Ryan on runtime v. language - Tuning runtimes. Go and Rust - [@1:06:42](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=4002) Rust is its own build system - Bryan’s 2018 “Falling in love with Rust” post - Lisp macros, Clean, Logo, Scratch - [@1:11:27](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=4287) The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. - [@1:12:09](https://youtu.be/D-Uzo7M-ioQ?t=4329) Oxide bringup updates - I2C Inter-Integrated Circuit - SPI Serial Peripheral Interface - iCE40If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: October 4th, 2021Economics and Open SourceWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for October 4th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on October 4th included Edwin Peer, James Todd, Peter Corless, Matt Campbell, jasonbking, Simeon Miteff, Josh Clulow, Ian, Joe Thompson, Dan Cross, Tom Lyon, Tim Burnham, and vint serp. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Mark Jones Lorenzo (2017) Endless Loop: The History of the BASIC Programming Language bookJohn Kemeny wiki[@3:11](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=191) Tim’s excellent tweetWilliam Gibson wikiJohn Browne (1996) The Bug Count Also Rises short story[@5:38](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=338) Growing up with BASIC[@8:03](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=483) Braille ’n Speak PDA (intro video), BASIC programmingTI-BASIC language[@10:39](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=639) Speaking program reading off system calls in real time snoop could output to /dev/audio[@13:39](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=819) Joel Spolsky (2002) Strategy Letter V blogBryan’s (2004) The Economics of Software blogSoftware “maintenance”[@20:02](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=1202) Cathedral and the Bazaar, wiki“Forkophilic” development model and the Alan Cox -ac Linux tree[@26:07](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=1567) Open source as something in the commercial best interest of a business SCO v IBM wikiHalloween documents wikiSteve Ballmer’s “Linux is a cancer” quote in the Chicago Sun-TimesOpenOffice.org wiki (open sourced from StarOffice)[@30:29](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=1829) Document editing as a service. Services and open sourceRichard Stallman on SaaS[@33:34](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=2014) The Joel Test linkJoel’s (2007) Strategy Letter VI blog“Everybody wants to be a platform”[@38:58](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=2338) Joel’s take on Sun Making the pie larger. Porting NFS to rival platformsThe Sun Network Filesystem: Design, Implementation and Experience has a section on porting experiences.Monetizing software - “Sun could never monetize software, only hardware”[@44:44](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=2684) Window toolkits, “cross platform”, write once run anywhere“Write once, debug everywhere”What’s the directory separator on MVS? or Stratos VOS?[@51:40](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=3100) James’ experience working on Tomcat Joel’s (2002) Lord Palmerston on Programming blogGraphics toolkits, Electron/Web vs Native[@1:05:21](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=3921) “OpenSolaris downloads are potential buyers for the ZFS appliance”[@1:06:17](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=3977) Jason Hoffman “The Sun does not shine on me” Strategy cannot make up for poor executionSun CEO Jonathan Schwartz didn’t travel to meet customersDemoing to a hostile audience“Asteroid named Linux on a collision course” tweet[@1:13:20](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=4400) Open-core, AWS services, monetizing open source “People will pay for a service”Could Apple open source?[@1:18:43](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=4723) Packaged solutions; giving mom a linux box. Free software: free for whom? Support relationships. People want support[@1:22:05](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=4925) Why didn’t Sun embrace Linux? ZFS on Linux, UbuntuThe Sourceware Operating System Proposal – Larry McVoy’s open source SunOS 4 proposal.Sun bought Cobalt wiki[@1:25:33](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=5133) “The writing was on the wall for Sun..” x86 price-performance“Couldn’t you buy like 100 x86 computers for that price?”RISC machine in-fighting, while Intel undercuts the market[@1:31:01](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=5461) Josh’s work on frustrating hardware configuration[@1:33:25](https://youtu.be/JDd8xGSP9DA?t=5605) Peter’s experience as a Sun customer Vertical scaling, but not so much horizontal scalingClusters of cheap commodity hardware outperforming big multiway boxesImportance of open source for big internet companiesTraders used Sun workstations, for fast trading[@1:38:39](ht...

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: September 27th, 2021The Books in the BoxWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for September 27th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on September 27th included Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, Antranig Vartanian Simeon Miteff Matt Campbell, Jeremy Tanner, Joshua Clulow, Ian, Tim Burnham, and Nathaniel Reindl. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Not recommended :-( Dave Hitz and Pat Walsh (2008) How to Castrate a Bull bookPeter Thiel (2014) Zero to One book[@2:45](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=165) David Jacques Gerber (2015) The Inventor’s Dilemma: The Remarkable Life of H. Joseph Gerber book[@7:21](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=441) Sidney Dekker (2011) Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems book[@13:08](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=788) Robert Buderi (1996) The Invention that Changed the World: The Story of Radar from War to Peace bookMIT Rad Lab Series infoNuclear Magnetic Resonance wikiRichard Rhodes (1995) Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb bookMichael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson (1997) Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age bookCraig Canine (1995) Dream Reaper: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Inventor in the High-Tech, High-Stakes World of Modern Agriculture bookDavid Fisher and Marshall Fisher (1996) Tube: The Invention of Television bookMichael Hiltzik (2015) Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex book[@18:05](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=1085) Ben Rich and Leo Janos (1994) Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed bookNetwork Software EnvironmentLockheed SR-71 on display at the Sea, Air and Space Museum in NYC.[@26:52](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=1612) Brian Dear (2017) The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture book[@30:15](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=1815) Randall Stross (1993) Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing book[@32:21](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=1941) Christophe Lécuyer and David C. Brock (2010) Makers of the Microchip: A Documentary History of Fairchild Semiconductor book[@33:06](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=1986) Lamont Wood (2012) Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans Who Invented the Personal Computer Revolution bookCharles Kenney (1992) Riding the Runaway Horse: The Rise and Decline of Wang Laboratories bookTom’s tweet[@34:06](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=2046) Bryan’s Lost Box of Books!Edgar H. Schein et al (2003) DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation book[@36:56](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=2216) Alan Payne (2021) Built to Fail: The Inside Story of Blockbuster’s Inevitable Bust bookVideotape format war wikiHackers (1995) movie. Watch the trailer ~2minsSteven Levy (1984) Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution book[@42:32](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=2552) Paul Halmos (1985) I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography bookPaul Hoffman (1998) The Man Who Loved Only Numbers about Paul Erdős book1981 text adventure game for the Apple II by Sierra On-Line, “Softporn Adventure” (wiki)[@49:16](https://youtu.be/zrZAHO89XGk?t=2956) Douglas Engelbart The Mother of All Demos wikiJohn Markoff (2005) What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry bookKatie Hafner and Matthew Lyon (1998) Where Wizards Stay Up Late book1972 Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing documentary ~26mins (wiki) included big names like Corbató, Licklider and Bob Kahn.Gordon Moore (1965) Cramming more components onto integrated circuits paper and Moore’s Law wiki[@52:3...

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: September 20th, 2021Theranos, Silicon Valley, and the March Madness of Tech FraudWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for September 20th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on September 20th included Land Belenky, Toasterson, Cole Frederick, and Simeon Miteff. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:John Carreyrou on Theranos “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” 2018 book“Bad Blood the Final Chapter” podcast as the trial proceeds (announcement), on apple, spotifyCole’s tweet linking to a ~5min video of a would-be Theranos competitor commenting on its collapse > The lone inventor is a dangerous impression to give people.Related: Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman “The Myth of the Genius Programmer” 2009 talk ~55mins[@9:47](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=587) Companies that drive scientific people nuts uBeam “claims to be developing a wireless charging system to work via ultrasound. Scientists have strongly criticised the plausibility under physics of this proposal.”uBiome > To innovate, you have to balance the world as it is with the world as it isn’t.[@13:44](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=824) Theranos’ fantastical vision. European attitudes around business and innovation. PCR Polymerase chain reaction invented 1983 by Kary Mullis.[@18:39](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=1119) Fake it till you make it? Optative voice > The secrecy of Theranos should have been a red flag[@23:57](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=1437) Whistleblower Avie Tevanian. Smoke and mirrors, giving the board the run around.[@29:05](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=1745) “Everyone was relying on someone else to do their due diligence” Tech risk, venture capitalCerebras Systems wafer scale processorsEllen Pao NYT editorial “The Elizabeth Holmes Trial is a Wake-up Call for Sexism in Tech”[@35:20](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=2120) Software cure-all 737 MAX failures[@40:14](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=2414) Founding myths Jean-Louis Gassée2015 “Theranos Trouble: A First Person Account” blog2018 “Theranos Could Have Been Stopped” blog[@44:06](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=2646) Tesla “Autopilot”, Uber self driving Anthony Levandowski > Judge Alsup: This is the biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen. > This was not small. This was massive in scale.[@48:21](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=2901) March Madness of Silicon Valley Fraudsters Solyndra bankrupt 2011Tether[@59:02](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=3542) Levandowski jeopardizes employee Better PlaceThe Economist ObituaryJuiceroFlip Video bought by Cisco 2009[@1:04:35](https://youtu.be/YWdk9CKML2g?t=3875) Warning signs of fraudulent companies Transparency, celebrity boardsOptaneInconsistency between board and leadership on what the coming milestones areIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: September 13th, 2021Docker, Inc., an Early EpitaphWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for September 13th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on September 13th included Steve Tuck, Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, Josh Clulow, Ian, Nick Gerace, Aaron Goldman, Drew Vogel, and vint serp. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Topic: Scott Carey’s article How Docker broke in halfMore by Carey on Docker: Docker Desktop is no longer free for enterprise usersWhat is Docker? The spark for the container revolutionAndrej Karpathy’s tweet showing InfoWorld.com spamming adsCarey talked to:Solomon Hykes (Docker cofounder with Sebastien Pahl)Ben Golub (Docker CEO 2013-2017)Craig McLuckie (Kubernetes cofounder)Nick Stinemates (early employee and former VP of Business Development)[@5:21](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=321) Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 Rashomon ~90mins. Watch a 2min trailerBox office bomb “The Hottie and the Nottie” movie. Other stinkers: Gigli, Gotti[@9:31](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=571) Jerry Kaplan’s 1996 book Startup: A Silicon Valley AdventureSteve’s take on commercialization > Bryan: There’s no question that they hit on something very big. > We saw a container as an operational vessel, but we failed to see > a container as a development vessel.[@14:36](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=876) dotCloud (PaaS) struggles to find a buyer; ultimately open sources as last resort > All of a sudden a company that nobody had heard of, > was a company that everybody had heard of.They took too much money.[@17:40](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=1060) Pitfalls in raising money and scaling sales by imitating big companiesHBO’s Silicon ValleyClip ~1min with Jan the Man, Keith, and Doug (I’m shadowing Keith) > Everybody should be spending time arm in arm with customers understanding > how is this technology going to solve a problem > which they’ll want to pay to have a solution.Tom: Was there actually a business anyways? Or was it just technology?What if developers are attracted to those things they know cannot be monetized?There was this belief that if a technology is this ubiquitous, it will be readily monetizable.[@27:26](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=1646) Docker Swarm and Kubernetes > Hykes: We didn’t work at Google, we didn’t go to Stanford, > we didn’t have a PhD in computer science.Stinemates: (The Kubernetes team) had strong opinions about the need for a service level API and Docker technically had its own opinion about a single API from a simplicity standpoint. We couldn’t agree.DockerCon 2015: No mentioning Kubernetes! Brendan Burns’ talk “The distributed system toolkit: Container patterns for modular distributed system design” was unfortunately made private by Docker sometime in the last two years. The internet archive only has this. Burns wrote a blog post about the topics from his talk.rkt (“Rocket”), CoreOS[@36:11](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=2171) Docker coming to marketEnterprise teams wanted supportInitial support offerings were expensive and limited (no after hours, no weekends) > Bryan: I floated to Solomon in 2014: run container management as a service.Rancher Labs, K3s (lightweight kubernetes)People care about GitHub stars (for better or worse)[@48:02](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=2882) Monetizing open source technologiesTriton implementing the Docker APIThe support relationships are the foothold to figure out the product.[@54:36](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=3276) Venture capital going into DockerDocker acquires TutumProduct market fitAcquisitions[@1:04:42](https://youtu.be/l9LTJdT0sZ8?t=3882) Could the outcome have been materially different?Who made money on Docker? Cloud companies? Developers?VMware acquires HeptioWho invented containers? BSD Jails, Plan9 namespaces?Tyler Tringas’ post about how small teams can create value with little outside investment, as a result of the Peace Dividend of the SaaS Wars.If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: September 6th, 2021Put the OS back in OSDIWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for September 6th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on September 6th included Dan Cross, Josh Clulow, Tom Lyon, Simeon Miteff, Daniel Maslowski, Matt Campbell and Moritz. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Adam’s tweets on recording Twitter Spaces.Tweet on recovering a recording Timothy Roscoe’s Keynote Screenshots teasing his slidesConf videoComplicated relationship with academia and industry [@8:09](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=489) Adam’s MS graphics experienceBryan’s USENIX 2016 keynote ~1hr: A Wardrobe for the Emperor – Stitching Practical Bias into Systems Software Research Conferences as the publishing vector for CS research[@13:47](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=827) What a modern OS does > … accreted and not designed. > They were not designed, they congealed.[@17:10](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1030) Rob Pike’s 2000 “Systems Software Research is Irrelevant” paperThe value of incremental improvements[@21:47](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1307) Building on extant working components and interfaces Opaque, proprietary hardwareAMD Platform Security Processor > Artifacts of the OS implementation tend to have outsized impact > on overall system performance[@26:27](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1587) Performance is not the only axis of a system Security, malleability, convenience, reliability[@31:12](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1872) Specialization HarmonyOS, FuchsiaDifferent chips performing different tasksFirmware everywhereIntel OptaneIntel 8051[@37:02](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=2222) Open hardware and firmware ARM Cortex-M0 > That’s why we land at incrementalism, we ossify at some boundary. > And it’s very hard to change things on either side without moving in lockstep.Tom: The PC architecture was a great thing, but now the OS vendors have abdicated any knowledge of the hardware. Give us UEFI and we don’t care what happens beneath that.Should ARM have UEFI? (or something like it)[@45:29](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=2729) Developing hardware is still challenging, but has never been easier than today (especially low-speed) Tom’s tweet about parallels with homebrew computing in the 70’sPrecursor and Xous[@50:58](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3058) Where will new systems development fit in with our existing (working) systems? Low-speed is an opportunity areaRISC-V for peripherals[@56:37](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3397) Backwards compatibility seems to be more important than marginal gains: Shingled magnetic recording offered <25% density gain at the cost of compatibilityOptane: gains didn’t justify the costSmart NICs only made sense in hyperscale server fleets > Josh: If you’re going to change the programming model, you have to blow the doors off on at least one axis[@1:00:45] Moving management plane to a NIC. AWS Nitro implements this with a series of PCIe offload cards.[@1:01:22](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3682) Abstraction boundaries not designed for the current circumstances Coordination problems between vendorsVestigial componentsAMI, AST2500Arcane boot processes and shortcuts available for cloud compute xhyve[@1:08:57](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=4137) Removing things is so hard Things change given enough timeGraham Lee’s essay on legacy and software dependencies …and in the end will be the command lineIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: August 30th, 2021A brief history of talking computersWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for August 30, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on August 30th included special guest Matt Campbell, as well as MattSci, TVRaman, Jessamyn West and Dan Cross. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Brian Dear’s The Friendly Orange GlowBrodie Lockard created amazing software on PLATOControl Data Corp Homework[@2:47](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=167) Matt’s intro Deane Blazie created TotalTalk, a speaking terminal. See his 2004 interview.Apple IIe computer and the Echo II speech synthesizer card.[@4:15](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=255) The Echo ][ sound sample Wargames computer: GREETINGS PROFESSOR FALKEN. Listen > SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? > Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War? > … > Is this a game or is it real? > WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? > … > What’s it doing? > It’s learning… > … > A STRANGE GAME. > THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS > NOT TO PLAY.[@7:46](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=466) Prose 2000 sampleDECtalk audio sample[@12:14](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=734) Apple to PC Keynote Gold, Master Touch, Zoom Text[@14:53](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=893) Keynote Gold sampleTalking Moose. Watch a sample.[@17:17](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1037) GUI screen readers outSPOKEN used QuickDrawWindow Bridge 1992[@21:58](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1318) Meeting another sight impaired person on a MUDpwWebSpeakEmacspeak[@26:44](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1604) Early programming experiences Apple IIGS[@28:47](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1727) Emacspeak user base[@31:34](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=1894) Things were getting better on the Windows side.. JAWS, patch parody sampleMicrosoft Narrator[@36:12](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=2172) Linux SpeakupMixing multiple sound streams, hardware limitationsSlackwareZipSpeak by Matthew Campbell[@44:53](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=2693) Editors for the visually impaired? ed text editorEdbrowse[@49:36](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=2976) Working on accessibility (a11y) for pay FreedomBoxGNOME EsounDKDE aRtsGnopernicusOrca[@57:46](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=3466) Microsoft Active AccessibilityAT-SPICORBA, D-Bus[@1:03:11](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=3791) Handheld devices Apple VoiceOverGoogle TalkBackiPhone Screen Recognition article[@1:08:09](https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?t=4089) What should software engineers know about accessibility? Use a mature UI framework!Microsoft UI Automation is the successor to MSAA.AccessKit by today’s speaker Matt Campbell DECtalk samples One of the most important settings a blind person will want to change in their speech synthesizer is how fast it talks. JAWS parody clipAlt text image captionsTopical recent conference presentation: - Emily Shea (2019) Voice Driven Development videoIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: August 23rd, 2021The episode formerly known as ℔We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for August 23rd, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on August 23rd included Neal Gompa, Tom Lyon, Laura Abbott, Jeremy Tanner, Matt Campbell, Simeon Miteff and others. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Last week’s recording on “Showstopper” with author G. Pascal Zachary, and Jessamyn West.Ashton-Tate history (there never was any Ashton, and dBASE II was the first version) dBASE IV was “slow, buggy” and didn’t get fixed in a timely mannerLast week, Pascal mentioned that CEO Ed Esber “in a fit of insanity admitted to me (a journalist) he didn’t know how to use his company’s own product!”Friday! personal information manager, and Sidekick from Borland (like Google calendar for DOS)[@3:01](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=181) Phrasing: operating program (vs operating system) Steve Jobs 1992 MIT Sloan talk ~72mins on consultants, hiring people and leaving Apple (see mit.edu summary) > Jobs: NeXTSTEP is not an operating system, it’s an operating environmentJuly 5th recording discussing NeXT. Randall Stross book: Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing (1993) > Mac OSX focused on user capabilities of the desktop environment, but they considered it one and the same with the operating system[@7:42](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=462) Windows NT had “multiple personalities” > Adam: I was instantly transported to the 90’s. > Bryan: I could hear Smashing Pumpkins playing on the radio. Sun’s Spring OS was the ne plus ultra of this approachMach microkernel, GNU Hurd, Apple M1,Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL > Adam: Docker takes static linking to the extreme and just ships everything[@12:40](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=760) Microkernels > Simeon: (Oxide) is working on a microkernel for Hubis, tell us about that Minix, and the Tanenbaum-Torvalds 1992 microkernel vs monolithic debateQNX Unix-like real-time OS See ACM ByteCast interview with Rashmi Mohan, Bryan tells the story ~3mins of coming to QNX after reading about it in the “Operating Systems Roundup” of Byte Magazine 1993 (see also Bryan’s blog post and remembering Dan Hildebrand)L4 microkernelThe QNX 1.44M demo diskThe GUI was called Photon. > Bryan: why would we not run this (QNX) absolutely everywhere?Oberon OS. Photon microGUI[@15:49](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=949) Laura on writing a microcontroller operating system Cliff Biffle’s websiteMicrokernels, root of trust, embedded systemsThere is very little (or no) dynamic memory allocation in Hubris.Tock multitasking embedded OS, and Bryan’s “Tockilator: Deducing Tock execution flows from Ibex Verilator traces” video ~12minsIn Tock, dynamic program loading is central. Hubris functions as a security-minded service processor. The programs it will use are all known in advance; so dynamic loading (and the accompanying security concerns) can be left out.Fit-to-purpose OSs[@24:19](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=1459) ROPI/RWPI (aka “Ropy Rippy”) and the growing pains of RISC-V GitHub issue ROPI/RWPI Specification (Embedded PIC)OpenTitan, ARM Cortex-M > When we set out to write Hubris, we spent a lot of time reading > and learning what’s out there.QNX vs monolithic systems. QNX was robust against module failure, so bugs in modules were tolerable. At Sun, faults in a module were system faults, so bugs were unacceptable.Memory protection. Stack growing into (and corrupting) data segment, hard to debug.Stack corruption, a hit and run.[@32:39](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=1959) Humor: Oxide rustfmt bot is named Ozymandias Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” poem > LOOK UPON MY REFORMATTING YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR!stale bot, open source maintainers, communicating bugs and issues[@39:54](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=2394) Fun QNX bug story QNX wrote their own POSIX utilities, they wrote their own AWKQNX developers, incl. Peter van der Veen[@43:00](https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?t=2580) How do you say… vi, ed > Tom: Off with their eds!sed, ps, kubectl, /etc/passwd, QNX (...

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: August 16th, 2021The Showstopper ShowWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for August 16th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on August 16th included special guests G. Pascal Zachary (see gpascalzachary.com), and Jessamyn West (see jessamyn.medium.com), as well as Dan Cross, Tom Lyon, Josh Clulow, and others. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:G. Pascal Zachary’s “Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft” bookTracy Kidder’s “The Soul of a New Machine” book[@0:46](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=46) “The endless debate of NT vs Unix.” Bryan: My whole career was kind of defined by going where Windows wasn’t. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I found was a real time capsule from software development in the 90’s.[@2:46](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=166) Jessamyn: There was some familial impact (from developing DG Eclipse) that wasn’t mentioned in the book. “O, Engineers!” retrospective from wired[@6:30](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=390) What was Kidder’s process? “He lived in my house!”[@8:32](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=512) Zachary interviewed family members extensively. > People couldn’t leave, they were staying at the office all the time.[@14:23](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=863) I do feel this is a time capsule. A time before two mega-trends hit: the Internet and open source.[@17:33](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=1053) Microsoft was kind of a joke software company in the early 90’s. > Dave Cutler was a force of nature.[@19:59](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=1199) No one understood why someone was good at coding. It was a mystery to everyone, why there was such a wide stratification of coders. > There were projects that never saw the light of day. Ashton-Tate, dBase > There was a sense from Cutler and Perazzoli, that leadership of the team, > that these guys at Microsoft really didn’t get how serious the process > of building this battleship was.I think the level of anguish did surprise me.[@23:59](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=1439) In “Soul of the New Machine,” the machine was the star, and people served it. East Coast vs West Coast attitudes. > On the West Coast, the personal computer were supposed to help you > actualize your counter-cultural values. Ken Olsen of DEC > Computing is equivalent with IBM. There was no software industry > so long as IBM gave all the software away for free.[@26:09](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=1569) Crashes. > Wozniak dreamed of owning > his own PDP > computer, which cost as much as a house. So he was aware of the robustness > of the minicomputer, and by contrast, the puny power of a personal computer. Thirtysomething > Dave Cutler was not cuddly. He was menacing, he could lose his temper. > And I tried not to get to close to him physically for that reason. > There were two looming father figures in Cutler and Gates. > And I think it created a lot of anxiety.[@29:52](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=1792) The stakes for NT at Microsoft were high. Fred Brooks’ “The Mythical Man-Month” book > It was a watershed moment in the history of computing. > It was more like the last battleship, rather than the next frontier.Bryan: I didn’t realize this, that Gates was arguing against memory protection with Cutler. From our perspective, shipping an operating system without memory protection, in an era when microprocessors supported it, is malpractice.[@33:14](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=1994) Cutler’s vendetta against Unix. > Conflict was at the heart of innovation at Microsoft at that time. Mitch Kapor of Lotus. > These early personal computer innovators were dismissed and sometimes > humiliated by mainstream big iron people of the 60’s and 70’s.Bill Gates’ “The Road Ahead” book doesn’t mention the internet.Zachary’s “Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century” book > Computers on the West Coast were seen as extensions of your creativity, > and a tool for liberation. And for a long time that dominated the horizons.In 2005 Gates and Ballmer don’t want to do cloud computing. “Who’s gonna want to put their stuff in the cloud?” We’ve found that computing is a collective experience.[@38:28](https://youtu.be/hlQuF75L4TE?t=2308) Email and personal messaging Sun Ray thin client computerDennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson’s “The UNIX time-sharing system” paper > Unix was an experiment in collaboration.RSX-11 for the PDP-11. And VMS for the VAX. > The attitude of looking down on Unix (as undesigned, academic) is > carried forward by Microsofties today.Tom: You can forgive Cutler’s misgivings, because Unix pretty

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: July 26, 2021Agile + 20We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for July 26, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on July 26 included Tom Lyon, Tom Killalea, Dan Cross, Aaron Goldman, and others. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Al Tenhundfeld’s Agile at 20: The Failed RebellionThe Agile Manifesto[@0:55](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=55) Adam’s experiencesFrom the Agile Manifesto history > The only concern with the term agile came from Martin Fowler > (a Brit for those who don’t know him) who allowed that > most Americans didn’t know how to pronounce the word ‘agile’.[@6:25](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=385) > The problem with agile is when it became so prescriptive that it > lost a lot of its agility.[@8:06](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=486) > There’s so much that is unstructured in the way we develop software, > that we are constantly seeking people to tell us how to do it. > The answer is it’s complicated.Steve Yegge’s Good Agile, Bad Agile > So the consultants, now having lost their primary customer, were at > a bar one day, and one of them (named L. Ron Hubbard) said: > “This nickel-a-line-of-code gig is lame. You know where > the real money is at? You start your own religion.” > And that’s how both Extreme Programming and Scientology were born.[@9:15](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=555) Edward Yourdon“Decline and Fall of the American Programmer” book[@10:26](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=626) “The principles are not all wrong. Some today even feel obvious.” > There’s also a lack of specificity, which gives one lots of opportunity > for faith healers to come in.[@14:43](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=883) “Something I found surprising about Agile was how rigid it became.” Dan’s perils of personal tracking methodologySun’s engineers connecting directly with customersThe Agile Ceremonies. (an ultimate guide) Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-Up, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective[@20:48](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=1248) “I think we overly enshrine schedule estimation. If there are any unknowns it becomes really hard.” > I think there’s a Heisenberg principle at work with software: > you can tell what’s in a release or when it ships, but not both.[@23:25](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=1405) Tom Killalea talks to success stories he’s seen with Agile Building S3 at AWS[@28:31](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=1711) Sprint planning and backlogs Big work chunks, responding to changing priorities[@33:39](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=2019) Success or failure of an Agile team? “Do demos and retrospectives”Unknowns in software development make estimation hard[@39:11](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=2351) Dan’s experiences Personal Software Process, Team software process, Software Engineering Institute > Some people really benefit from the level of rigidity that is set out > by these processes. Prior to that, they just weren’t having > these conversations with their sales team, product owners, etc.Construction analogies, repeatability.Self-anchored suspension bridge[@46:40](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=2800) Software as both information and machine. Consultancies, repeatability, incremental results.“For each success story, there are many failures.”Manifesto as a compromise between different methodologiesSilver Bullet solutions, cure-alls. See Fred Brooks’ (1987) “No Silver Bullet” paper[@51:18](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=3078) Demos: “Working software is the primary measure of progress.” Experimentation and iterationNo true Scotsman fallacyWhat does Agile even mean anymore?“Letting people pretend to agree while actually disagreeing, but then going off and building working software anyway.”[@59:45](https://youtu.be/3tp5EtPdPwY?t=3585) Ed Yourdon and the Y2K problemMaybe there are too many Agile books already.Tom Killalea conversation with Werner Vogels AWS developmentAgile is more like a guideline than a target to hit.Consistent team composition over time“Soul of a New Machine”: trust is riskThe answer can’t be “you’re doing it wrong.”How do you know if it’s working for your team?(Did we miss anything? PRs always welcome!)If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: July 5, 2021NeXT, Objective-C, and contrasting historiesWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for July 5, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on July 5th included Tom Lyon, Ian, bch, Theo Schlossnagle, Rick Altherr, and Nate. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:First Twitter Space, May 3rdthe lost recording (~31mins)(possible?) genesis of the idea to record spacesAdam’s process for recording spacesSomeone (Sid?) mentioned NeXT’s transparent compensation modelOxide: Compensation as a Reflection of Values[@2:28](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=148) Randall Stross book: Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing (1993)[@4:42](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=282) The SPARCstation 1 and the Sun-4c (campus) architecture > The hardware was not competitive, but dammit they sure looked good!NeXTcube[@9:15](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=555) It’s nuts how much time and energy they spent on the look of it. > They were building a huge factory, just about the time people were > starting to outsource everything.Sun was doing incremental things, and Steve was going for the 100 yard pass.Apple Lisa computer > NeXT refused to interoperate with anything. > They had this idea that a NeXT customer is going to buy all NeXT machines.[@13:20](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=800) NeXT was a really proprietary company, contrasted with Sun, a really open company. > Bill Gates volunteers that he would gladly urinate on a NeXT machine.They are attempting to reinvent absolutely everything, so they need all software to be written from scratch, effectively.Jobs does this over and over again at NeXT. He does things to make NeXT look bigger than it is.[@16:23](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=983) Jobs blows off important meeting with IBM[@18:56](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=1136) Mathematica went whole hog on NeXT[@20:55](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=1255) “Steve Jobs yells at your dad a lot?”Quark Software Inc, QuarkXPress[@22:22](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=1342) Story of Jobs trying to sell NeXT machines to Brown’s CS dept > “Your product looks great, I’m just not sure your company is > going to be around for as long as we need it to be.” > Then Steve Jobs calls him an a**hole and storms out.[@23:35](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=1415) NeXT spent very freely. Lavish offices, catering, etc > He did not take VC money. He had weird money from beginning to end. > Ross Perot thought Jobs was a total genius. Then realized that whether > he was a genius or not, he wasn’t selling any computers.The 80’s were all about fear of Japan.Ultimately they had to pivot away from hardware.[@26:38](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=1598) In contrast to SunMetaphor Computer SystemsBryan’s tweet from July 3 > Measured by most any yardstick one could choose, Sun was one of > the most successful stories of the 1980’s for all of industrial America.John Gage[@32:43](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=1963)the NeXTSTEP operating system, based on the Mach microkernelObjective-C HOPL paperWalter Isaacson biography on Steve JobsBe Inc, computer company. Jean-Louis GasséeStepstone (originally PPI) > Not that I’ve read a ton of HOPL papers, but I don’t think HOPL papers > spill the tea quite this much..[@39:53](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=2393) Named parameters in programming languagesThe software crisis, Object Orientation, “Software ICs”[@44:40](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=2680) NeXT was building real things with Objective-C, PPI wasn’t.[@45:54](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=2754) Rick’s experience with Objective-C at AppleObjective-C, Objective-C++, and Swift[@54:08](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=3248) Objective-C and Swift are mandated. If it were an open ecosystem, would they be significant? > There was a feeling that the hardware didn’t matter. > You shouldn’t trouble yourself with any details.[@57:46](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=3466) Secrecy at NeXT and AppleNDAs signed per project > Secrecy is a lot of work.It was all about being able to walk on stage, and dramatically drop something that was going to be life changing.It seems like the secrecy was being used to manipulate people.[@1:03:13](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=3793) x86 port at Apple[@1:05:34](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=3934) Jobs tells them to make it great, because it’s currently sh*t.[@1:08:04](https://youtu.be/2H9XQBdLB0Y?t=4084) Is Objective-C being used anywhere today outside the Apple ecosystem?GNUstep, Agent-based modelingIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We’d love to have you join

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: June 21, 2021What’s a bug? What’s a debugger?We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for June 21, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on June 21st included Dan Cross, Sean Klein, Aram Hăvărneanu, and the mononymous Nate. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Adam’s toddler (being chased by a rooster) > Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are three-year-olds.[@3:12](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=192) Sy Brand’s tutorial Writing a DebuggerLobsters – when HN isn’t enough Bryan’s debuggersMDB Modular Debugger > Adam: I think people are using cargo-cult debugging, rather than getting to the root cause > of these things, or being satisfied until they get to the root cause. > Bryan: I think with software systems, it’s really hard to know what they’re actually doing.Procedure Linkage Table aka “the plits”“Runtime Performance Analysis of the M-to-N Scheduling Model” (pdf) 1996 undergrad thesis (Brown CS dept website)[@6:29](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=389) Threadmon website and 1997 paper (a retooling of the ’96 paper) > When I built that tooling, it revealed this thing > is not doing at all what anyone thought it was doing.TNF Trace Normal Form > Part of the problem with debuggers… debuggers are historically written by compiler folks, > and not system folks. As a result, debuggers are designed to debug the problem that > compiler folks have the most familiarity with, and that’s a compiler. > Debuggers are designed for reproducible problems, way too frequently.I view in situ breakpoint debugging as one sliver of debugging that’s useful for one particular and somewhat unusual class of bugs. That’s actually not the kind of debugger I want to use most of the time.Software breakpoints[@11:59](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=719) > libdis was my intern project in 2000. The idea was to take the program text, > and interpret it in some structural form, and try to infer different things about the program.Ghidra: software reverse engineering toolLaura Abbott’s Exploiting Undocumented Hardware Blocks in the LPC55S69Volatility: the memory forensics framework Adam couldn’t quite remember.[@14:59](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=899) I meant this question earnestly, what is a debugger?The first bug > The term is somewhat regrettable… It implies a problem, when there may not be a problem. > It may just be I want to understand how the system is operating, independent of whether > it’s doing it badly.Wikipedia on Observability (control theory)Oxide’s embedded OS and companion debugger: Hubris and Humility[@19:01](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=1141) Using DTrace to help customers understand their systems. > If you strings the DTrace binary, > you’re not gonna find any mention of raincoats.Cliff Moon on Boundary[@22:13](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=1333) Cardinal rule of debuggers: Don’t kill the patient! (see also: Do No Harm) > Not killing the patient is really important, > this was always an Ur principle for us.The notion that the debugger has now become load bearing in the execution of the program, is a pretty grave responsibility.[@26:54](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=1614) Post-mortem debugging > It is a tragedy of our domain that we do not debug post-mortem, routinely.Heisenbug (when the act of observing the problem, hides the problem)[@31:11](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=1871) > What’s going on in the system? It’s not crashing, there’s no core dump. > But the system is behaving in a way I didn’t expect it to, and I want to know why.[@33:51](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=2031) Pre-production reliability techniques > All of our pre-production work has gotten way better than it was, and I think that’s > compensation for the fact we can’t understand these systems when we deploy them.[@37:58](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=2278) > The move to testing has in fact obviated some of the need for > what we consider traditional debuggers. > (Bryan audibly cringes)[@39:08](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=2348) Automated and Algorithmic Debugging conference AADEBUG 2003HOPL History of Programming Languages > There was a test suite of excellence when it comes to automated program debugging. > And it was some pile of C programs with known bugs, and you would throw your new > paper at it, and it would find 84% of the bugs, and there would be a lot of > slapping each other on the back on that. Really focused on the simplest of simple bugs.[@43:15](https://youtu.be/UOucW3F7nCg?t=2595) Bryan’s Postmortem Object Type Identification paper > Who is my neighbor in memory? Because my neighbor

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: June 7, 2021Barracuda 7200.11: broken firmware is broken software!We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p (PT) for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Laura Abbott, Joshua Clulow, Dan Cross, Bill Blum, Rick Altherr, Tom Lyon, and others. The recording is here.(Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:The Seagate ST3000DM001class action[@2:01](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=121) Bryan and Adam’s experience FishworksHGSTBryan is unable to forget SU0D > This thing damn near ruined our livesBroad InstituteThe Seagate Barracuda product line. 7200.10, 7200.11[@8:10](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=490) Tough customers[@10:17](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=617) Cargo cultism and bad interview questions What is a Good New Englander? We’re not a hugging people.[@12:35](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=755) Adam and Bryan after Sean Manaea’s 2018 no-noThe Gift of the Magi, LBA[@15:11](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=911) Adam torments the interns[@16:41](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=1001) Bill and the HP Z620sThe Wisdom of James Mickens[@19:21](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=1161) Rick’s story Fast and loose firmware source controlWestern Digital’s Sparta drive, flying too low[@25:34](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=1534) Need for open source firmware (see also: Bryan explains why proprietary firmware is a problem ~3mins) Vendor gaslighting[@27:48](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=1668) Tom on custom firmware Rent seekingS.M.A.R.T.ADM-3A “dumb terminal”[@32:08](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=1928) Adam’s firmware horror story flashbacks HBAWhen turning it off and on again isn’t enough: unplug and replugSun’s ILOM bugSun’s embarrassing ticker symbol change[@38:10](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=2290) After Sun > Stay the hell away from hardware[@39:55](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=2395) Hard drive API wish list? Adam’s series on APFS > There is no bit rot here..Networking vs Storage. Intermittent, transient failure[@44:40](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=2680) Firmware as differentiator Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)Microwave-assisted magentic recording (MAMR)see also: Jessie’s Life of a Data Byte surveys storage media tech through historyAmazing physics, mediocre firmware. Firmware is software[@48:23](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=2903) The only firmware that didn’t give us problems.. Adam on flash: A File System All Its Own, Flash Storage Today, History of SSDs blog entry mentioning sTec and GnuteksTec aquires Gnutek LtdThe SEC’s complaint against Manouchehr Moshayedi of sTecChannel stuffingSee also: Bryan mentions sTec misconduct on the Data Center Podcast[@54:04](https://youtu.be/qisoAIx8EE8?t=3244) Sans firmware? FPGA to ASIC transition article 2011. (aside: treat yourself to this amazing vintage mouse-themed site announcing the same) > It’s when microprocessors show up that all the trouble starts.(Did we miss anything? PRs always welcome!)Our next Twitter Space will be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time. Join us; we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 31, 2021Silicon CowboysWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Steve Tuck, Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, and others. The recording is here.(Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Silicon Cowboys documentaryOpen by Rod CanionPortable before Compaq, Silent 700Osborne EffectPBS Silicon Valley documentaryIBM’s role in Compaq history80’s Ads: John Cleese, Charlie ChaplinCompaq and iPhone?Decline and AcquisitionSomething Ventured documentaryPRs welcome Bryan: Have you listened to the Reply All episode “Is the Facebook Microphone On?”The truth is actually scarier, Facebook doesn’t need the mic to be on … to read your mind.Silicon Cowboys[@2:46](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=166) The 2016 documentary “Silicon Cowboys” follows the rise of the Compaq computer company. (IMDb) (Watch the trailer ~3mins)I was trying to watch “Halt and Catch Fire” with my kid … and there’s a lot of spontaneous sex breaking out…Fastest to one billion in revenue… fastest to Fortune 500… a meteoric riseOpen by Canion[@7:05](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=425) The 2013 book “Open” by Rod Canion (cofounder and CEO of Compaq): “How Compaq Ended IBM’s PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing.”[@10:02](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=602) Steve: Ben Rosen was the venture capitalist who wrote the first check to Compaq, really got them off the ground. On the board for 20 years.Their timing was right. The way they did the company was right. And they executed really really well.To go from zero to 50 thousand units, of almost anything, in the time span they did, is incredible.[@14:40](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=880) Tom: The thing that really put them on the map was having the portable when nobody else did. And being 100% compatible.Those portables were barely luggable, they were huge!Back in a time when there was no network. Being able to pick up your computer and take it to a place, was your network.[@16:47](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1007) Steve: A big catalyst for their success was the channel. People were able to pick it up and go, they didn’t need special training.[@19:25](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1165) Dad used to bring home the luggable so I could play Space Invaders, and he would work on spreadsheets.Portable before Compaq[@20:49](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1249) There were portable solutions before Compaq, but for timesharing.You had the T.I. Silent 700, in the 70’s, you could tote that home and plug it into the modem.Osborne Effect[@22:41](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1361) Tom: They killed their company with the famous Osborne EffectBryan and Steve (clearly excited): What was the Osborne Effect!? Tom: Pre-announcing the next machine.Telling customers: man, if you love the Osborne 1, just wait till the Osborne 2… So they did Bryan: Something I found surprising about the history of Compaq was the different organizational approach that they had.Early on, before even thinking about what to go do, they were talking about the kind of company they wanted to build.PBS Silicon Valley[@26:14](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1574) The 2013 PBS documentary “Silicon Valley” tells the story of Fairchild Semiconductor. (Watch chapter one ~17mins)[@28:14](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1694) We ask people, when they apply to Oxide, when they’ve been most unhappy in their careers. And it all boils down to people not feeling listened to, not having agency.IBM’s role[@29:41](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1781) How much of Compaq’s success is just pure mis-execution from IBM? IBM inadvertently creates this pseudo open architecture, and makes exactly the wrong move in trying to reproprietarize it with the PS/2 and Micro Channel architecture; which is an absolute disaster.In many ways the story of Compaq is as much the story of the failed PS/2.It was such a mis-execution to do this analysis on the market and say: we need to grab our existing customers and lock them in, before they slip through our fingers, and in doing so, just hasten their departure. And Compaq was in the right spot to pick up the pieces.MCA (Micro Channel architecture), ISA, EISA[@33:22](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2002) We were ripping out a bunch of ISA and EISA drivers..I am a sacrificial sheep, I can’t possibly go. You are a sacrificial lamb.The machines themselves are anemic, if you want any functionality you go to a third party.. There were magazines filled with advice on which sound-generating card you should buy.IBM PC XT – Hercules graphics card[@37:00](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2220) Driver for Token Ring.PCI – SBus – VME – VLB – AGP[@40:20](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2420) Speaking of Intel, a big part of the Compaq story is what happens with the 38

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 24, 2021from /proc to proc_macroWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Brian Cantrell (not making that one up!), Nima Johari, Joshua Clulow, Laura Abbott, and Tom Lyon. The recording is here.(Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:The other Adam Leventhal [1] and the other AHL [2][@3:16](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=196) Hockey Calder CupCharlotte CheckersGrand Rapids Griffins[@4:02](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=242) Roger Faulkner invented the /proc filesystemGerald Ford Presidential Library and MuseumGerald Ford inaugural address (including its most famous line, “our long national nightmare is over”) > I went in a Gerald Ford cynic, and came out a Gerald Ford super-fanRoger’s “The Process File System and Process Model in UNIX System V” paper[@7:43](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=463) “I am on a mission from God to make programs debuggable” AVL trees and linked lists > Performance is the root of all evil.Trace Normal FormWatchpoints, libwatchmalloc > Watchpoints are magical, when they work. It feels like a superpower.[@11:37](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=697) > Roger made this incredible contribution about debugging infrastructure > being an attribute of a production system. strace, trussBONUS: 1986 USENIX: A System Call Tracer in UNIXThe ptrace(2) system callptrace’s overloading of the wait(2) system callThe German word that we’re seeking: Misappropriation-of-mechanism-in-a-seemingly-clever way-but-is-ultimately-a-disaster > ptrace is the x86 of system calls[@16:45](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1005) A long-coming apology.. Linux branded zones (LX)“Method and system for child-parent mechanism emulation via a general interface” patent > You have to be bug-for-bug compatible.LX vfork/signal bug that broke golang > vfork: unsafe at any speed, toxic in any quantity[@20:16](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1216) Upstart’s problematic use of ptrace(2)Celebrating Joshua getting ptrace correct for LX branded zonesStack shenanigans breaking LXRed zone, segmented stacks[@24:39](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1479) The application was fishing in its own stack.. Clozure Common Lisp, mcontext > These kinds of lies just don’t nest. Magic does not layer well.[@28:56](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1736) Windows Subsystem for Linux WSLillumos on an M1? QEMU, ARM Cortex-M > It’s hard to get the machine really properly emulatedAWS Mac minis[@33:55](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2035) It’s kind of amazing that Apple has never had much interest in the server space. Apple XserveCHRPThe story of the stolen laptop. Little endian PowerPC OpenPOWER[@37:35](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2255) Language H! NCRLanguage H: An informal overview ( part 1, part 2)The (other) D language[@39:12](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2352) AADEBUG’03Postmortem Object Type Identification[@41:31](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2491) It all comes back to awkBourne shell source code / Algol68 #definesThompson shellBryan’s 2007 Dtrace review, Google TechTalk ~80mins[@48:07](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2887) Dtrace language inspiration Dtrace clones > It was all based on us exploring some phenomenon, > something being kind of a pain in the ass or impossible, > and inventing something that was easy to use.Architectural review board: “This reminds us a lot of awk..” > What’s the most powerful one-liner you can crank out with awk?CUDA, Bluespec[@52:35](https://...

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 17, 2021golang asserts and the PLATO terminalWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Adam Jacob, Matt Ranney, Nima Johari, Antranig Vartanian, Joshua Clulow, Tom Lyon, and Bob Mader (and thanks to Jeremy Morris for catching Bob’s profile!).(Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)We recorded the space, but we had some challenges, and we lost the recording when the first Twitter Space died at around 5:30p. We recorded the second half though; the recording is here.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Khan Academy blog entry on GoAdam’s blog entry, I Love Go, I Hate Go > I found novelty in the strictures, but objected to some of the specifics[@2:40](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=160) Go’s assertion assertionThe Elm Language[@4:40](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=280) Lionizing Unix > 7th edition is amazing, incredible, a break through.. > and it’s also kind of a shitty engineering artifact that needed a lot of work.[@6:32](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=392) Core dumps[@7:03](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=423) Impromptu PSA: Happy 81st Birthday Alan Kay!Alan Kay tribute video to Ted Nelson, including the story of how Alan Kay and his wife – Bonnie MacBird – were brought together by Ted Nelson, and how PARC inspired her to write TRON (!)Bedknobs and Broomsticks (WAT)[@13:18](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=798) Brian Dear’s The Friendly Orange GlowThe PLATO TerminalControl Data Corp (CDC)Dr. David Gräper’s GrapenotesEmpire game[@20:05](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=1205) Write your own lessons in TUTORDartmouth BASICSNOBOL[@23:12](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=1392) Dr. David Gräper’s Grapenotes started in 1977Xerox Alto computer(Did we miss anything? PRs always welcome!)Our next Twitter Space will be on May 24th, 2021 at 5p Pacific! We’ll be kicking off the discussion with Silicon Cowboys (aka the real and sexless Halt and Catch Fire) on the rise of Compaq – and their aspiration to be a different kind of company. Join us; we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 10, 2021A Requiem for SPARC with Tom LyonWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to [@bcantrill](https://twitter.com/bcantrill) and [@ahl](https://twitter.com/ahl), speakers included special guest Tom Lyon plus Joshua Clulow, Dan McDonald, Dan Cross, Tom Killalea, Theo Schlossnagle, Antranig Vartanian, and [@perlhack](https://twitter.com/perlhack).We recorded the space; the recording is here.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:[@2:06](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=126) SPARC 30th anniversary dinner > SPARC was an amazing achievement for its time, > but there were some nasty trade-offs made.[@2:56](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=176) illumos announcement on the end of SPARC supportSPARCstation 2[@4:37](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=277) “There is no photography allowed in the bring-up lab” storySPARCstation 1 (code-named Campus) > They bricked their first CPU..[@6:23](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=383) UltraSPARC-II E-cache parity error[@8:51](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=531) Register windows > Most people don’t know, about that first SPARC, > there was no integer multiply or divide.. > It would trap on the instructions.I feel so decadent, I’ve just been sprinkling multiplications around my code for years.[@9:55](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=595) popc instruction (also called Hamming Weight)IBM Stretch 1961, and the one-of-a-kind IBM Harvest made for the NSAHenry Warren’s 2002 Hacker’s Delight Ch. 5 shows a ~20 instruction algorithm (no branches, only adds/shifts/masks by constants) > Warren: According to computer folklore, the population count function is important to the > National Security Agency. No one (outside of NSA) seems to know just what they use it for, > but it may be in cryptography work or in searching huge amounts of material.According to Agner Fog, Ice Lake performs popcnt with a 3 cycle latency, and Zen 3 with just 1 cycle latency.Phil Bagwell’s 2001 Ideal Hash Trees depend on pop count > Bagwell: Note that the performance of the algorithm is seriously impacted > by the poor execution speed of the POPCT emulation in Java, a problem > the Java designers may wish to address. Persistent versions of Bagwell’s trees are used for the built-in hash maps of Clojure, and in libraries for Scala etc.[@11:39](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=699) This was the debate between Roger Faulkner and Jeff Bonwick: register windowsRoger Faulkner (RIP) thought they were horrific[@12:35](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=755) Register fishing: Bryan’s version and Adam’s version > When you want to know the state of some other process, you have to flush > those register windows to memory to be able to recover the stack trace.[@14:30](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=870) Delay slot > We sat around the lunch table talking about how crazy it would > be to have a branch that executed right after a branch.DCTI couple (delayed control transfer instruction)[@15:31](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=931) “Well, the instruction set doesn’t allow that..” story > Bedlam. As far as Solaris kernel discussions go, bedlam.Leibniz vs. Newton[@20:14](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1214) Annulled branches[@22:17](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1337) Praise for SPARCSPARC address space identifiers > When we were porting Solaris to x86, and deciding what fraction of the > address space would belong to the kernel vs the user, it felt disgusting to me.[@25:26](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1526) Software-filled TLB > They just didn’t have the room to cram a hardware page table walk into the chip.MIPS would give you a trap on a VAC conflict (virtual address cache)[@27:34](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1654) It was slow, it was late, and it had a lot of problems, it was wrong.UltraSPARC-III, code-named “Cheetah” > It’s weird, I compile this thing over and over, and every 80th time when > I compile and run it, it’s 40x slower..UltraSPARC-IV+, code-named “Panther”[@32:17](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1937) Does the Viking I-cache bug ring a bell?SuperSPARC, code-named “Viking” > You’d have to DC balance the I-cache. If you had too many zeros, > they’d start flipping to ones.E-cache parity error > It was due to everything but high energy particle strikes.Radioactive boron in our SRAM manufacturing process[@38:52](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=2332) “Move it further from the tube” story > When you’re going to have a customer do something, you have to remember there’s > a human being on the other end of that. You cannot have them chasing your theories. > You need to be transparent and honest with them.[@42:25](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=2545) Micron DRAM story[@44:38](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=2678) High priced consultants and cosmic rays > They literally lined the roof with lead.. and it didn’t change the error rat...

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 3, 2021Mr. Leventhal, Come here I want to see youWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for May 3, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on May 3rd included Laura Abbott, Nate, Antranig Vartanian, François Baldassari, Tom Killalea, Land Belenky, and Sid?. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Before the recording started, we discussed:2011 Solaris Family Reunion video ~20minsKatie Moussouris’s blog entry on the Clubhouse vulnerabilitiesLaura’s blog entry on the LPC55 vulnerabilityLand pointing us to the Atmega 328p MCU in a BK Medical endorectal probeFrançois on the STM32F103 found in PebbleIntel Management EngineSome of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:ASPEED BMC chip[@1:24](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=84) So formal correctness is something that I think we are all very sympathetic with. > It’s very laudable, it’s also very hard.From L3 to seL4 What Have We Learnt in 20 Years of L4 Microkernels? (paper)Who guards the guards? Formal validation of the Arm v8-m architecture specification (paper) > Hardware architecture is an area where formal verification is more tenable, > a level you can readily reason about.Our challenge is how can we satisfy our need for formalism without getting too pedantic about it. You don’t want to lose the forest for the trees. A system we never deliver doesn’t actually improve anyone’s lives, that’s the challenge.[@5:20](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=320) Journal club experiencesBootstrapping Trust in Modern Computers (book) > [@9:45](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=585) > We’ve tried to build a culture of looking to other work that’s been done. > Not because everything’s been done before, but because you don’t want to have to > relearn something that someone has already learned and talked about. > If you can leverage someone’s wisdom, that’s energy well spent.[@11:46](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=706) When systems repeat mistakes, engineers feel deprived of agency: “I suffered for nothing.” > Engineering is this complicated balance between seeing the world as it could be, > and accepting the world as it is. > As you get older as an engineer, it’s too easy to no longer see what could be, > and you get mired in the ways the world is broken. You can become pessimistic.Caitie McCaffrey on Distributed Sagas: A Protocol for Coordinating Microservices (video ~45min)[@14:17](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=857) It’s dangerous to live only in the future, detached from present reality. Optative voice[@16:45](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1005) At Oxide, we ask applicants “when have you been happiest and why? Unhappiest?” Interesting to see that unhappy is all the same story: we were trying to do the right thing and management prevented it. > When I was younger and maybe more idealistic and willing to charge at the windmills, > I stayed too long with a company. > All the developers that interviewed me were gone by the time I got there. > I should have walked out the door, but I was too young and didn’t know better.[@18:43](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1123) “How do you and your cofounder resolve conflicts?” > I don’t want to hear about how you don’t have conflicts, tell me about how you resolve them.Folks aren’t able to walk away, they’ve got this commitment both to the work and to their colleagues. I’ve been a dead-ender a couple of times, I’ll go down with the ship.[@20:28](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1228) In “Soul of a New Machine” (wiki) Tom West says he wants to trust his engineers, but that trust is risk. > I just love that line: that trust is risk. > That’s part of the reason some of these companies > have a hard time trusting their technologists, > they just don’t want to take the risk.People are so not versed in how to deal with conflict, and there’s nothing scarier than salary negotiation.They need you, that’s why you’re here, you’ve made it all the way through the interview to this point, you’ve got leverage, now’s the time to use it.[@23:04](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1384) Oxide: Compensation as a Reflection of Values > It takes the need for negotiation out, > because it replaces it with total transparency.Sometimes it’s not about what you’re getting paid, it’s about what the other person is getting paid. Not wanting to get taken advantage of.It’s a social experiment for sure.[@28:07](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1687) Steve Jobs famously tried this at NeXT: pay was transparent but not equal.History of compensation at NeXT (wiki) (quora post) > I think that’s the worst of both worlds, a recipe for disaster.If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific T