Hacker News: kickitover

New comment by kickitover in "Fish has been ported to Rust"

kickitover — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:31:43 +0000

And of course it is has ≈28 unsafe declarations.

New comment by kickitover in "Hello-World.rs"

kickitover — Sun, 08 May 2022 23:44:49 +0000

This is hilarious, thanks for the great laugh and the start to my day.

Ada and X Window System Integration (1992) [pdf]

kickitover — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 05:04:16 +0000

Article URL: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA246667.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29115651

Points: 29

# Comments: 0

New comment by kickitover in "Aura – The Ada User Repository Annex"

kickitover — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 05:01:42 +0000

The interesting concept, or design of this particular package manager for Ada (over Alire, which is influenced by Rust), is that the current authors have designed the AURA to be an Annex to the Ada Standard, which conceptually, histrorically, and technically makes sense, as Ada was engineered from the early days to express all software engineering paradigms in the language, and not the compiler.

Aura – The Ada User Repository Annex

kickitover — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 04:57:39 +0000

Article URL: https://annexi-strayline.com/blog/posts/4/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29115620

Points: 33

# Comments: 2

Ada implementation of an X Window System Server (1989)

kickitover — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 06:25:21 +0000

Article URL: https://sci-hub.se/10.1145/74261.74264

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29077750

Points: 108

# Comments: 38

New comment by kickitover in "Where Is Politics? (2011)"

kickitover — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 08:25:06 +0000

Thought I would share this perspective, or theory, on how or where we locate politics and our political engagement, because, hacknews has an odd aversion to political discussion and news—unless it is framed in liberal or conservative context...mostly anyways.

Where Is Politics? (2011)

kickitover — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 08:25:06 +0000

Article URL: http://marx.libcom.org/blog/where-politics-07122011

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29023686

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by kickitover in "Aussie++ The programming language from down under"

kickitover — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 08:17:33 +0000

Stroth cobber, this too bloody gud!

New comment by kickitover in "Ada is not just another programming language (1986)"

kickitover — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 07:57:53 +0000

A technical and non-technical article on the development of the Ada programming language.

Ada is not just another programming language (1986)

kickitover — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 07:57:52 +0000

Article URL: https://sci-hub.se/10.1145/6424.6425

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29023529

Points: 81

# Comments: 66

Thesis Zero: Electrical systems are tools for the liberation of humans from work

kickitover — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 05:59:22 +0000

Article URL: http://nand.club/manifesto.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17874392

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by kickitover in "DirectFB"

kickitover — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 23:59:53 +0000

Ah memories. DirectFB was an awesome project, unfortunately, if I am not mistaken, it was only targeted at Linux at the time. Another project, that now X.org+Linux are re-implementing extremely poorly, was the Kernel Graphics Interface (http://kgi-project.org). KGI was an incredibly well engineered API, portable GPU interface, and reference implementation for FreeBSD-8.x and Linux-2.x, providing modern features and GPU programming paradigms to Linux and Unix systems; monolithic or micro-kernel designs. KGI required the General Graphics Interface for a complete user experience, as in, a replacement X server called XGGI, however, it also functioned very well without X or any other heavy graphical windowing system analogous to The X Window System, it was engineered for embedded systems too. GGI was an amazing project too, with it's platform agnostic way to draw graphics via it's multiple display targets or surfaces; DirectFB; SDL; DirectX; KGI; X11; VGL; foo. I suspect both were well over engineered, and at the time, the patches for KGI were rather large, and I believe the Linux crowd did not want GPU mode-setting in the kernel, a shame, because KGI's mode-setting was next level at the time and it could be tightly integrated with the rest of KGI, or remain a mini driver in the kernel. KGI did have some odd constructs that sometimes made for some mental acrobatics; focuses; displays; devices; odd client-server model between all the devices, it almost became a complex beast on first glance. It actually made way for a true GPU multi-headed and multi-user system, that provided fine grained security between devices or users to the GPU, managed by a brilliant low-level, or kernel level multiplexer of the low-level or kernel console, virtual terminals and other applications (or clients) to the devices (focuses/or inputs and the display). Some of their code was stuck in the late 90s and the interface was rigid regarding what a GPU was at the time, however, that could have been changed, as there were updated specifications for next generation ideas for KGI based on where GPU development was going at the time. If I recall correctly, there were GPU vendor developers volunteering at KGI, and, I could be mistaken, but when AMD bought ATi, one of the last GGI developers/volunteers worked at AMD, and they worked with other AMD engineers to convince AMD to eventually release hardware data-sheets and specifications on ATi GPU hardware, and it happened.

A shame neither took off, and we are now left with X.org's insistence on Linuxisms for GPU development.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but thanks so much for the trip down memory lane :-)