operating systems theory - LeFreq/Singularity GitHub Wiki

I will define an operating system as those procedures and protocols which mediate the relationship between design ideals and physical practicalities.

An operating system has to figure out how to balance four design goals:

1. computational/storage efficiency: not being wasteful or overusing resources
2. security: ensuring continuity of data and users?
3. language expressivity: how easily you can get the computer to do what you want (like RAD),
4. application expressivity: how well you can express your computations and knowledge

This project maximizes 3 and 4, to facilitate rapid application development and useful tools being adopted in a widespread, distributed network of fellow object-writers who get paid for their efforts. Ideals 1 and 4 can be achieved with this project for specialized applications like 3-d modeling (games, CAD) by sacrificing #2. If you safrifice #3, you get Windows or Linux.

STUB Some examples:

• easy addressability of files <-> finite hard disk space.
• maximizing user experience <-> processor load
• abstractions of logical network with physical architecture and bandwidth

See also programming language theory.