Are there similarities between operating system kernels and programming language kernels?

Posted by rahmu on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by rahmu
Published on 2012-08-31T11:45:52Z Indexed on 2012/08/31 15:52 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 254

Filed under:

operating-systems

|

smalltalk

|

kernel

I know very little about Smalltalk but I noticed that there's a frequent mention of the "kernel". Dan Ingalls prime maintainer of several implementations of Smalltalk also worked on a Javascript environment called "Lively Kernel" and in Peter Siebel's book he kept mentionning the "kernel".

I cannot help but think that it is no coincidence that the creators of Smalltalk used the name of a (central) part of operating systems to refer to a particular component of their language.

Was it because Smalltalk intended to act as an operating system? Was it because theory behind programming languages and operating systems have a lot in common?

What is the reason behind the common appelation of the two components?

© Programmers or respective owner

Related posts about operating-systems

Choice of operating systems for a Rackspace cloud installation

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I am planning to use Rackspace cloud services to host a java web application and also run apace for wordpress and trac. What would be a stable operating system to host such an application. My requirements are that the core OS bundle should be minimalistic (so I can install only what I want), consume… >>> More
Which operating systems book is good as a quick refresher?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I am preparing for a technical interview and need to review the basics of major operating systems concepts. We used Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems in school for our operating systems course, which is a good book, but too long to be reviewed in the course of a few days. For an example, I am… >>> More
Do different operating systems have different read and write speeds?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
If I have two different operating systems, such as Windows 8 and Ubuntu, running on the same hardware, will the two operating systems have different read and write speeds? My guess is that there would be minimal difference between operating systems and read and write speeds to the hard disk since… >>> More
Five Web Operating Systems You Can Take for a Spin

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
Is a cloud-based WebOS in your network's future? Here are five you can try out from your own servers or from public hosting. >>> More
mobile devices operating systems

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
what are the operating systems which run on mobile devices?On which language are these developed? >>> More

Related posts about smalltalk

Run Smalltalk on server without GUI?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi! I've got rather distinct question - I'd like to run Smalltalk on a production server without using graphical interface. Is this possible with VW or Pharo (maybe even Squeak)? I've got a VPS hosting without X and would like to have few websites running on Smalltalk, while developing them localy… >>> More
Real-world use cases for Smalltalk

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Hello, I've been playing a bit with Smalltalk, and I found it interesting. I know that there are some classical examples of Smalltalk: the Smalltalk images themselves and the Seaside web framework, and that there are lots of in-house custom applications built using this language. I'd like to know… >>> More
Learning Smalltalk as a Java programmer

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I am a Java programmer willing to learn smalltalk. As of now I am working within the Pharo environment. Trying to switch from Java to Smalltalk is being a bit of a headache, honestly. I would like to learn Smalltalk with the help of a code base available but I believe that there aren't many Smalltalk… >>> More
Browser that does refactoring in Smalltalk Pharo?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The Pharo dev image ships, by default, with a browser that doesn't seem to have any refactoring abilities. What's the most convenient way to transform a fresh Pharo image into something more useful? >>> More
GNU Smalltalk API?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have recently been learning Smalltalk, mainly by going through the tutorial at gnu.org. While it has been really helpful and I have learned a lot, I would really like an extensive smalltalk API where I could view all of the built in objects and which messages they can receive, and what they will… >>> More