Re: [SharpOS Developers] MOSA / AOT

[<sh...@mi...>]

Hi Sander,

Before I left for vacation the compiler started emitting its first machine code instructions. Since then I've continued my path of refactoring and enhancing to stay with a clean design. I don't want to speculate about completion dates, but its not a matter of weeks. There's a lot still pending and one of the goals I have is being able to compile SharpOS as it is right now - which it can't do yet for various reasons.

Anyways for user mode, there's a defined API: The .NET Framework (with Mono libs) - anybody should be able to work with those and develop their user-mode apps. For kernel mode the story is a bit different and I'd like for those who want to work there to sit down and discuss what they want to do and maybe really do a design-first, document-first, prototype-first, test-first style of development (which IMHO this project really really needs.)

I'm all for meeting up and discussing various aspects and like I said previously we should try to get at least Scott to the table. We definitely are able to specify interfaces and we are able to write device emulators to get us started, the compiler will catch up quickly. Btw. that is the path that Ensemble is taking and Phil is moving a lot of his work over to MOSA so both projects can benefit here.

The compiler will steadily improve, however in order for the improvements to be measurable we need to improve the testing situation. I've started a test system using mbUnit, which allows us to test the created code right on a Windows box* reducing the turn-around times. This has worked beatifully for the integer addition and could easily be extended to other basic operations on all integral and floating point types. I'm thinking of doing a compiler status page, where  everyone can see the things supported/not supported and the progress can be monitored - this basically should clear up all the confusion if the compiler does support feature Y or not. I'd wish we could automate this with appropriate test cases and with the help of some continuous integration toolkit to automatically generate these reports for everyone to see them.

I'm planning on allowing the VES I'm developing as part of the compiler to be hosted inside the MS CLR, so we could even go as far as running code on Windows in our own runtime environment hosted inside the MS CLR. These efforts should dramatically improve development as booting up SharpOS (or any other kernel) in a VM is always a lengthy operation and I'd like to get to the point of being able to run/debug various services right on Windows/Linux as long as they don't touch real hardware. And this can work for lots of operating system services.

Mike

* I haven't started Linux support as monos gmcs compiler in version 1.9 lacks some features from the C# language I've been using, however the new 2.0 preview should compile and run the compiler fine. I'm not sure about mbUnit though and I'd need to rewrite the test suite due to manual executable memory allocations etc.

Sander van Rossen schrieb: 


I'm absolutely for an initiative such as MOSA, and think it's a
fantastic idea and we should definitely go with it.
But if we're not going to use the AOT, the next question is; how far
along is the MOSA compiler, and how long (roughly) will it take before
we can start to realistically use it?
Because there are a couple of show-stopper bugs/features missing in
the AOT (such as the interface problem that Phil emailed about
before), and until we can compile the kernel as it is, and beyond, the
whole kernel development comes to a stand-still.
And like Bruce mentioned, most people here want to develop at the
kernel or user level..
So how are we going to handle this situation?

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