looking forward to 2024
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dr.mt...@gmail.com
Jan 19, 2024, 2:22:47 AM1/19/24
to Shen
A new year is a time for looking both backwards and forwards;
both seeing what has has been achieved and what will come and what
may come.
Shen 37.1 is the apotheosis of a long line of development stretching back
to when Shen 1.8 was issued n September 2011.
Since then many releases have appeared, each building on the predecessor.
Undoubtedly the biggest jump was to the S series kernels in 2021. Examination
of the code will show that the kernel was entirely rewritten and the result
is technically better in nearly every way.
As far as the kernel is concerned, 37.1 marks the last significant revision I intend
to produce. As a specification, the kernel has been stable for a long time and
it is the realisation of that specification that has grown more and more perfect.
With the new factorisation code I eliminated the last of what I thought of as deficient
in the old.
For this we can thank those people who supported Shen Professional because
the S series was a transfusion of technology from SP. So a big hand to the sponsors of SP because you made this possible. And 2024 will continue the same technology transfer with TCL/tk and concurrency moving out from SP into the public domain.
This transition marks the end of an 9 year era because the role of the closed source Shen Professional will have ended. Virtually all the tech that made SP distinctive will have moved to BSD. So SP users will be able to download their version themselves from the Shen website. It may be with a little cooperation we can get executables for Mac and Linux up there too!
Quite a lot of people might say that SP should have been open source from the beginning. But this misses an important fact about the history of this project and of open source in general; that OS projects are chronically underfunded. In 2015, Shen was suffering from Financial Deficiency Disease. It was not possible to move the project forward under the OS economic model. I've written an entire essay on the weaknesses of the OS model and I won't repeat it here. But everything I said there, I stand by today. In following a trajectory of development in closed source culminating in final release in open source, Shen copied the path of many previous projects including Netscape. SP saved the Shen project.
On the publication front, all the tech relating to the Shen libraries, stlib, TCL/tk and
concurrency will be brought together in one volume The Shen Library and published; probably at a price of £20. The 4th edition of The Book of Shen will be revised to incorporate the improvements post 2021 and e-copies of both books brought to the Book Vault where they can be edited any time to eliminate errors. I'm also looking at e-pub versions of these books.
I'm writing this in the depth of the UK winter with sub-zero temperatures. By the time these events come to pass, we should be looking at a summer in leaf and a warm sun in a blue sky. What beyond all this; after the summer? Of course I will continue to support Shen, produce videos and offer guidance. I also want to motivate and organise the community to update many of the Shen implementations to the latest standard. It's actually not very hard to do - to change the code to the new kernel, which is easier to port than the old.
But I am conscious here of the passing of time, of things I wish to do beyond computer science. Things in the area of poetry, philosophy and esoterica. Whether any of these things have interest to my sponsors I know not, but they definitely call, as
do the mountains which I abandoned in 2009 to travel back to fulfil the bidding of a dying woman and build Shen. So it may be that a new relationship will be formed here in which my sponsors may find interest. But if not, then I warmly thank them for walking with me this far. I hope to see you around.
Mark
both seeing what has has been achieved and what will come and what
may come.
Shen 37.1 is the apotheosis of a long line of development stretching back
to when Shen 1.8 was issued n September 2011.
Since then many releases have appeared, each building on the predecessor.
Undoubtedly the biggest jump was to the S series kernels in 2021. Examination
of the code will show that the kernel was entirely rewritten and the result
is technically better in nearly every way.
As far as the kernel is concerned, 37.1 marks the last significant revision I intend
to produce. As a specification, the kernel has been stable for a long time and
it is the realisation of that specification that has grown more and more perfect.
With the new factorisation code I eliminated the last of what I thought of as deficient
in the old.
For this we can thank those people who supported Shen Professional because
the S series was a transfusion of technology from SP. So a big hand to the sponsors of SP because you made this possible. And 2024 will continue the same technology transfer with TCL/tk and concurrency moving out from SP into the public domain.
This transition marks the end of an 9 year era because the role of the closed source Shen Professional will have ended. Virtually all the tech that made SP distinctive will have moved to BSD. So SP users will be able to download their version themselves from the Shen website. It may be with a little cooperation we can get executables for Mac and Linux up there too!
Quite a lot of people might say that SP should have been open source from the beginning. But this misses an important fact about the history of this project and of open source in general; that OS projects are chronically underfunded. In 2015, Shen was suffering from Financial Deficiency Disease. It was not possible to move the project forward under the OS economic model. I've written an entire essay on the weaknesses of the OS model and I won't repeat it here. But everything I said there, I stand by today. In following a trajectory of development in closed source culminating in final release in open source, Shen copied the path of many previous projects including Netscape. SP saved the Shen project.
On the publication front, all the tech relating to the Shen libraries, stlib, TCL/tk and
concurrency will be brought together in one volume The Shen Library and published; probably at a price of £20. The 4th edition of The Book of Shen will be revised to incorporate the improvements post 2021 and e-copies of both books brought to the Book Vault where they can be edited any time to eliminate errors. I'm also looking at e-pub versions of these books.
I'm writing this in the depth of the UK winter with sub-zero temperatures. By the time these events come to pass, we should be looking at a summer in leaf and a warm sun in a blue sky. What beyond all this; after the summer? Of course I will continue to support Shen, produce videos and offer guidance. I also want to motivate and organise the community to update many of the Shen implementations to the latest standard. It's actually not very hard to do - to change the code to the new kernel, which is easier to port than the old.
But I am conscious here of the passing of time, of things I wish to do beyond computer science. Things in the area of poetry, philosophy and esoterica. Whether any of these things have interest to my sponsors I know not, but they definitely call, as
do the mountains which I abandoned in 2009 to travel back to fulfil the bidding of a dying woman and build Shen. So it may be that a new relationship will be formed here in which my sponsors may find interest. But if not, then I warmly thank them for walking with me this far. I hope to see you around.
Mark
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