DeVault argues that Plan 9, Bell Labs' successor to Unix, represents the best operating system design to date despite its commercial failure. He illustrates how Plan 9 perfected Unix's 'everything is a file' philosophy where Unix itself fell short, particularly in networking and process namespaces. The post walks through how Plan 9's consistent design enables elegant solutions to problems like VPNs, containers, and remote desktop with minimal code. DeVault attributes Plan 9's failure to Unix being too entrenched, but argues its ideas continue to inspire and that every programmer should spend time learning it.
Nov 12, 2022 Systems ProgrammingInternet & Protocols
