Table of Contents

• 1  Introduction
• 2  Operating Systems and Utility
  • 2.1  Utility
  • 2.2  Information
  • 2.3  Computers
  • 2.4  Limits of Computers
  • 2.5  Computing as a Project
  • 2.6  Computing versus Artificial Intelligence
  • 2.7  Computing Systems
  • 2.8  Subsystems
  • 2.9  Operating Systems
  • 2.10  Controversy about the Definition for an OS
  • 2.11  Operating System Utility
  • 2.12  Operating System Expressiveness
  • 2.13  Computing System Structure
  • 2.14  Users are Programmers
  • 2.15  The Long Reach of the Programmer
  • 2.16  Authority
• 3  Languages and Expressiveness
  • 3.1  Computer Languages
  • 3.2  Goal of a computer language
  • 3.3  Reuse versus Rewrite
  • 3.4  Copying Code
  • 3.5  Having an Extended Vocabulary...
  • 3.6  ... or a Better Grammar
  • 3.7  Abstraction
  • 3.8  Metaprogramming
  • 3.9  Reflection
  • 3.10  Security
  • 3.11  Trusting programs
  • 3.12  Program proof
• 4  No Computer is an Iland
• 5  Conclusion
• A  Draft
  • A.1  About the whole article
  • A.2  Part I
  • A.3  Users are Programmers
  • A.4  Operating System Kernel
  • A.5  Current state of System software
  • A.6  An Ancien Régime
  • A.7  Computists
  • A.8  Contents of an Operating System
  • A.9  Toward a Unified System
  • A.10  Newest Operating Systems: the so-called "Multimedia revolution"
  • A.11  Part II
  • A.12  Structures
  • A.13  Mutable objects
  • A.14  Sharing Data
  • A.15  Problem: recovery
  • A.16  Centralized code
  • A.17  Genericity
  • A.18  Part III
  • A.19  Down to actual OSes
  • A.20  Humanly characteristics of computers
  • A.21  Multiplexing: the main runtime activity of an OS
  • A.22  Miscellaneous notes