Agreed it isn't newsworthy, but it can be inspirational to a reader who hasn't had the 'guts' to take this leap. I'm sure a lot of people reading HN think about writing a new OS it's one of the archetypes [1]. So seeing someone take the plunge can be liberating. Seeing him get slammed on the site can be de-motivating so I was hoping to counter some of that. Back when I was doing a Java based OS I spent a lot of time reading the basic kernel in eCos which had a very nice packaging an build system. I would not have invested that time if I hadn't been aspiring to other things.
[1] Programmers seem to come in 3 archetypes; the systems guy who dreams of building a new OS, the language guy who dreams of building a new programming language, and the networking guy who dreams of building a new protocol. Some folks are parts of all three, I once thought if you wrote an RPG where the characters were coders these three areas would be where you would add skill points.
[1] Programmers seem to come in 3 archetypes; the systems guy who dreams of building a new OS, the language guy who dreams of building a new programming language, and the networking guy who dreams of building a new protocol. Some folks are parts of all three, I once thought if you wrote an RPG where the characters were coders these three areas would be where you would add skill points.