Guest post by Recent additions to MenuetOS include SMP support for up to 32 processors, support for 32GB RAM, support for time-critical, non-preempting processes, additions to window transparency, improved USB webcam and storage support, context-mixing compressor, WebCall (IP to IP with audio and video), streaming audio (internet radio) and video support – all written 100% in 64bit x86 assembly.
To the best operating system able to fit on a floppy. I don’t use to use any OS not fitting on an optical media, inside my wallet.
I also have a lot of respect for the project and the developers. Though I have to wonder about the claim that abstractions (e.g., other languages like C) create more bugs than they prevent. Granted, C would be a pretty good example to pick on, and almost every OS is written in it…
I think what they mean are “optimization” bugs. The C standard, and most other ones, are quite open to interpretation. A compiler is free to optimize all it wants, and some bugs may be introduced due to these optimization. There are a few subtle bugs that can get introduced this way, especially if you support more than 1 compiler (like GCC and clang).
That being said, I agree with your assessment that it’s a little overstated. If you have good quality control and don’t rely on unspecified behavior, that problem is significantly reduced.
A note on the size, you will never beat assembly on size. Any compiler will add so much extra stuff (boilerplate code), it’s not even funny. (http://timelessname.com/elfbin/)
My understanding of abstractions is not to reduce bugs, but to make development faster, so it sounds like their reason is a bit of a red herring.
And given the speed of progress of MenuetOS, as great as it is, there is a reason why people gravitate towards abstractions.
It didn’t last time I looked.