Microsoft Research releases Barrelfish - OS optimized for multiple cores | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Research releases Barrelfish - OS optimized for multiple cores

barrelfish.org

25 pointsMaascamp13 comments

I skimmed these papers and it's a mixed bag. They are showing clear speedups for some operations on large (>16-core) systems, but they are also introducing what looks like significant complexity (like replacing shared data and locks with two-phase commit).

Also coming soon from Microsoft Research: projects called Bracemonkey and B8.

I duno, its not that hard to believe that Microsoft can innovate. They do hire smart people. Sure Steve needs a nice kick in the bald-head, but that is beside the point.

I have no trouble believing that MS can innovate. I just thought it was odd that they came out with a weird-sounding animal name that happens to be almost identical to a weird-sounding animal name one of their big rivals recently used for an experimental project (they renamed it to Nitro when it was released), and I find it hard to believe that MS doesn't have people who go carefully over everything they do in public looking for legal or PR issues, or that they didn't notice how much "Barrelfish" resembles "Squirrelfish". On the other hand, it's hard to see that they gain any particular benefit from it, and I'm not much inclined to start making up conspiracy theories, and maybe the resemblance isn't as obvious as I think it is. Dunno. ... So, wanting to draw attention to the oddity but not having anything very coherent to say about it, I just made a joke out of it, but unfortunately it seems to have been insufficiently funny. Can't win 'em all.

Wow. You're pretty open about how you think.

I understand Bracemonkey is like Greasemonkey, and B8 is like V8, but what is Barrelfish like?

No. Barrelfish is awfully close to Squirrelfish. Hence Tracemonkey -> Bracemonkey and V8 -> B8.

Then again, a joke that needs explaining is a bad joke. So, sorry.

I thought it was from shooting fish in a barrel?

Indeed. The name is awesome, I love it. It's provokative and arrogant. This project has to deliver. If this stays in perpetual research and never becomes a product I'm going to be bummed.

OT on bad or obscure jokes:

I have an image posted in my cube that is a pic of Bruce Schneier and the caption reads "Bruce Schneier knows the state of Schroedinger's cat"

Someone asked me to explain it to them so I talked about Schroedinger's cat and the Chuck Norris jokes. Then who Bruce Schneier is and tied it all up with quantum crytography.

After all that, she gave me a half-hearted smile and made some crack about my geekiness.

After thinking about her reaction for a second, I penned the following tweet.

"Having to explain why a joke is funny collapses it's waveform and then it's just words."

http://twitter.com/jaywgraves/status/3864172416

Handwriting recognition rules.

Bad joke for me, maybe. People who get it will read your message, laugh, then read the explanation (maybe).

I know they're completely different OS's, but anyone have any insight into how this compares to Grand Central on Snow Leopard?

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