Say wha--now?

[124-C]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/microsoft-unveils-barrelfish-multi-core-optimized-os/

Clicking on the link above will take you to a short article about how Microsoft is working with some company/group called ETH Zurich to develop an open source operating system named Barrelfish. Wait. Open source?

Yes, open source.

The purpose of the OS is to learn how to efficiently handle multi-core processors. Something that no OS does right now. This short, 15-page pdf explains briefly, and simply what they are trying to accomplish and how they are going about it.

While I'm impressed by what they are trying to do, I'm still a little shocked to see Microsoft openly attached to an open-source project. Anyway, what do you think, ATG? Have you ever been surprised by a company? Are you ready to download their work, thus far, and give it a little tinkering yourself? How bad do feel for the chick in the first row of their group photo?

 

[Saverio C.]

In soviet Russia Corporations help you!  

[wakusei]

Oh wow. That one girl just made me have flashbacks of when I took a computer tech class in high school and was the only girl in a room of twenty or so (nerdy, unhygienic) guys.
You'd think they'd have leeched to me, but instead all they did was whine about how they couldn't talk about "man stuff" every day 'cause of the girl. Even the teacher was disappointed.

ANYWAY. Interesting stuff, this Barrelfish. Sounds like a good step forward in technology.  

[Thaliat Everwood]

Really? My experience with computer classes was a little different. Er, maybe it was because by the end of the college computer course I was in the professor had practically made me his teaching assistant because I could help the other students (all older than me, but I was only 18 at the time) with the software and answer their questions faster than he could some days.

I also was the first one to finish all quizzes/tests/exams...granted the course was only on MS software, not programing, so it wasn't like it was hard. Maybe that's why my experience was different with the computer guys...

I'm good with software, and almost never glance at manuals. I did self teach myself HTML, but really don't use that anymore. I wish I could be a "real" computer person, but I hate math. With extreme passion. It doesn't exactly love me back either. But I might go back for kicks some day to get a programming degree.

Actually, I want to learn to program games...not sure how many years that's going to take me. sweatdrop  

[Sentama Lin]

Lol, girl in technology.

Anyways, I'm not too overly surprised in Microsoft's involvement in an open-source project. Any headwork toward computers supporting all the multiple CPU/GPU cores is a good thing for all, and if Microsoft with their money and manpower want to help with it, good for them.

Though, I will just say this: OS X Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, and LLVM are also technologies that are now open standards created to better optimise programs to use all the cores available to computers. Mayhaps, in a weird sort of way, both these technologies can use each other?  

[Kalstolyn]

Hey, I've BEEN the Token Female on a team of techs. It does not suck at all. Actually, I really miss it. I prefer to work in a male-dominated field just so I don't have to put up with other women being all bitchy, slutty, attention-whoreish, and manipulative at work. Instead, I get a bunch of awesome drinking buddies, someone to play RISK with during lunch breaks, people who get my jokes, and people who can make rude banter with me but get offended if anyone from another team says anything untoward about me.