What makes noobs pick OS dev?

[inflater]

IMHO DOS 7 was the best DOS, and "DOS 4" never existed.

[neon]

What makes noobs pick OS dev?

Probably the same reason why gamedev noobs with no programming experience want to develop the next gen 3d mmo as their first project.

[Combuster]

Why people choose OS development, MMORPGs in computer sciences, (building a CPU in electronics, and I think each subject has its own cliched thing) is that they want to do the achievement of a lifetime. Especially noobs are good example of that because they think that if they can imagine something, they can create it. Only experience will tell them that it takes years of hard work to do those kind of things correctly. Once once they have bruised their ego's will they become newbies and try to take things from the start.

The stereotype here is:
something is 1337 and I was stupid enough to think it took 1337 seconds rather than 1337 years to complete this.

You guys were lucky that I learnt that lesson before I learnt to internet

[Troy Martin]

IMHO DOS 7 was the best DOS, and "DOS 4" never existed.

LOL! I meant to say DOS 8, since you couldn't do a SYS C: or FORMAT C: /S, and the DOS boot floppy you made from ME had just DOS on it, no FDISK/FORMAT/SYS. You had to locate them and copy them over yourself.

DOS 4.0 had more than 50 huge bugs, so most people waited until DOS 5. The best part of DOS 4 was support for 2 GB hard drives, compared to the previous, more tiny 32 MB FAT12 ones

[Love4Boobies]

LOL! I meant to say DOS 8, since you couldn't do a SYS C: or FORMAT C: /S, and the DOS boot floppy you made from ME had just DOS on it, no FDISK/FORMAT/SYS. You had to locate them and copy them over yourself.

MS-DOS 8 never existed. They stopped at 7.10 IIRC.

[Troy Martin]

DOS 8 was the DOS that was secretly hidden under ME. I've got lots of great Micro$oft facts, don't I?

[JackScott]

Every time I think about Windows ME, it makes me want to go out and buy a sealed copy of Windows 2000, so that I can put it up on my bookshelf and look at how great it is.

[Troy Martin]

I laugh at the noobs who think ME == 2000.

[babernat]

If I may provide my two cents. I remember when I was in high school and I saved up my money to purchase a Sams Teach Yourself C in 24 hours book. During my lunch break at work I would read a little bit and try to get my own versions of the examples working. I remember having a conversation with my boss about whether to go to college for information systems or for computer science. She told me I seemed like the kind of person who would do well with computer science so I decided to do that. Plus I hated fixing other people's computers. At that point I thought computer science was about programming. So fast forward to the following spring when I was in my second cs class. And a new world had unfolded before my eyes. I was introduced to algorithms and data structures. Wow. Computer science wasn't what I thought it would be. It turned out to be something so much better. Many people quit cs because they thought they were going to make computer games. Was the teacher's effort wasted on these people? I would say, "no."

Ok so what does this have to do with n00bs? I was a n00b. I still am a n00b. You will be a newbie for the rest of your career. Nobody can know everything all the time. It doesn't matter whether or not a n00b decides to actually complete the OS. It doesn't matter how far that individual gets. What matters is if they learned something. Perhaps they decide that OS's are not for them. That doesn't make them any less of a programmer or computer scientist. From what I gather most of the horrible n00b postings are made by fairly young individuals. Remember at that age kids are exploring, they try many different things albeit relatively shallowly and move on. That's OK. It's just like a little kid playing a sport for a season and moving on to something else. That's OK.

I know the frustration of dealing with people who ask questions but don't want to go through the effort of really understanding the answer. This board is no different from any other programming board out there. If the question smells of somebody who isn't going to spend the effort to take your advice, then don't bother to answer it. But I would encourage you to not penalize people who are new and have a fleeting interest in OS's. You all really do provide a great service in trying to make OS development accessible to everybody. Frustration is normal, but please don't be elitist. We need to be better than that.

[Creature]

The most important thing is just, even if you're a noob, you can do a difficult subject like OSDev, you just have to remember to not take too much hay on your fork when you're doing a project (i.e. try to develop a Windows-like OS when you're only just starting out with learning about the hardware and OSDev or trying to make the next 3D MMORPG when you're only just starting out with DirectX/OpenGL/GLide/<insert more here>. I've been programming for only about 1.5 years in C++ now and I knew next to nothing about OS development when I started, but now I'm learning bit by bit but you won't see me trying to develop some crazy network interface anytime soon. I guess it also depends on how fast you understand difficult material.

[DeletedAccount]

Hi Solar ,
Why are you so concerned . Advices generally take a lot of time to really "seep in " . When you want a person to follow a path ( may be this path leads to glory ) , but he chooses a different path ,you cannot really stop him, but let him follow the path of his choice, once he has learned from his mistakes , he may revert back to the path you mentioned .

Regards
Shrek

[iammisc]

I like delving into things early. Like if I want to learn a programming language, I'll start using it. It's a good thing then that I already has too much experience in C and C++ before doing OS dev and I managed to never really bother people that much.

[earlz]

I think I'll try to tell you what I was thinking when I first created my JuleOS however long ago.

Well, at the time, I was probably 14 or 13. I had gained a pretty good introduction as to what a language was by Dark Basic Pro(I still think it's a good basic language). It was geared for creating games though. I even tried making my own userspace OS/shell in dark basic. Cause I always thought it was just interesting for have such full control of how your project goes, and all the bugs are your own. So I started trying to learn C with a fundamental understanding of functions and basic stuff like that. Then I stumbled upon Emu8086 which is some pretty dumb assembler, but it had OS deving examples in it. So then I figured I had enough knowledge to attempt my first OS... I spent probably 6 months on that first hack job of an OS. I used char*** arrays for comparing strings at the command line just because "adding another * made it work" I wish I could go back and see my old posts, but it was destroyed I think by the merging of mega tokyo. It was so interesting though being able to create your own executable format, your own command line syntax, your own programs using your own libraries.

I think the reason noobs choose it is cause of the pure absolute control over your environment. And to a certain extent, using BIOS interrupts and such is a lot easier than figuring out the huge libc.

I don't regret learning C by making an OS. Maybe I could have learned it a little easier by just reading a book. But, building an OS really teaches your some of the tricks of C, like __attribute((packed)) and how to merge assembly in it, and exactly why the computer behaves as such when you execute that line of code.

But to any noob out there who loves os deving but fears it pure challenge, I'd recommend making an emulator or something like that. Something that does run in userland but still gives you a lot of control. (not to say I'm a noob by creating emulators lol)

[hailstorm]

Honestly I have to say, like some other forummembers here claim to be, I am also still a noob when it comes to OS programming. I don't think that's the problem though.
The main huge problem are those people that want to do those (programming an OS for example) things, but don't want to put any effort in it. Everything has to be spelled out and they don't even bother to search for information, buy significant books on the subject. But OS programming doesn't come down to the facts only, you have to know how to program properly. Making up algorithms, finding bugs, design your goal (in various steps), etc... I admit I am a noob when it comes to building an operating system because I know so little. But when it comes to designing algorithms, thinking them through thoroughly, finding information myself, I regard myself not as a noob; I just can't consider myself as a professional OS programmer. Maybe that's the difference...

[stephenj]

I think elitist is the wrong word.

Specifically because the source of the schism is knowledge/experience. You aren't going to get much experience if you depend on others to solve all your problems for you, and people spend a considerable amount of time transferring their knowledge to others. Hence, we see an uncharacteristic quality of "elitism", where being "skilled" is a group you are not only encouraged to join, but will be helped along the way.

But you have to do your part in the process! Think about writing documentation in English. I wouldn't mind proofreading someone's work. Or helping them choose a word or phrase (good technical writing is a fairly difficult aspect of the language). And in an extreme case I'd even help someone translate a non-trivial document! But I'm not going to teach you the language from scratch! I don't have the time nor ability to do that (which one can tell from my posts).

Likewise, I don't have the ability to bestow a newbie with experience. The best I can do is share my recommendations based on my experiences. Which again, is the transfer of knowledge, but expressing every aspect of every issue is far too time consuming. Especially considering how many books are available on the topic of software development*. Asking CS 101 questions that have been answered countless times both in print and online is basically saying "My time is more important than yours!"

People just come here with a messed up set of expectations. And don't seem to alter them even after they are informed (by varying degrees of politeness) how mistaken their preconceptions are. Until eventually, either one of us or them gets frustrated. Then people seem to learn they aren't going anywhere with their present outlook. Rude words seem to be the only thing that works with some people.

When I was a student in CS, I spent quite a bit of time helping others. But if they didn't heed my advise, then I saw no point in continuing (I had it happen a few times). I was doing it as a favour for them, and they realized that (Hell, some people bought me food/beer).

* Yes, there are some topics that only have crappy books. But a total newbie won't face this for a while.