[Mono-devel-list] Operating System in C# Project

[Richard Matthias]

It is mostly the work of two men so far, one OS expert and one
compiler expert. They have a C# compiler that creates native code
directly which helps of course. They also use C#'s unsafe mode
(something overlooked by many C# programmers) which is capable of
doing anything you can do in C. They use that for the low-level stuff
(as well as a little C++ and assembler) so you could say that it is
not all "managed code", but it is nearly all C#.

If you want more info head over to this thread on Channel9
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=68302
where one user who is just as skeptical as Kornél manages to take up
pages and pages of posts with their complete failure to understand how
an OS written in C# could be possible. There is also an interminable
discussion over what exactly "managed code" means and that really is
the core of the problem because it is a poorly defined term that is
really misapplied with respect to Singularity.

On 5/20/05, Elliot Paquette <elbaami at gmail.com> wrote:
> At some level there will be some unmanaged code, sure, but I think
> that the environment which you just described, Kornél, could be
> considered an integral part of an operating system, if not for
> simplicity's sake the operating system itself.  If you add the extra
> contraint that only IL code will be executed (as in Singularity), then
> the unmanaged requirements are further reduced.  I can not gauge the
> technical challenges involved with such a project, however, and it may
> well require hooking the Microsoft cash pump up to a vast team of
> programmers.
> 
> http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/
> 
> Elliot Paquette