ntoskrnl VS language-server-protocol

This is part of what I read on HN:

The first thing we observe is that the directory structure is basically identical. Yes, NT kernel subsystems are identified with short codes like "Ke" or "Ex". It's plausible that someone with a lot of NT knowledge would end up creating top level directories with these exact names, as is true of the WRK. But it seems kind of unlikely: the Wine sources do not show this pattern.

If we look at the Kernel Executive (Ke) subtree, we can see that there is a thing called a "Balance Set Manager". Both source trees define it in a file called balmgr.c - not only the location of the file but also the file name is identical.

https://github.com/Zer0Mem0ry/ntoskrnl/blob/master/Ke/balmgr... https://github.com/reactos/reactos/blob/master/ntoskrnl/ke/b...

It appears from the module description that the "balance set manager" is an optimisation of some sort related to reducing memory usage. Is this really something that needs a reimplementation with identical function prototypes?

Looking at the code of the identically named KeBalanceSetManager function, we can see that not only is the function prototype identical, but the order in which it does things is also identical. First it changes a thread priority, then it schedules a periodic timer callback.

Some of the local variables in these functions have identical names: PeriodTimer, DueTime, WaitObjects. Yes, these are obvious names. It's not a smoking gun. But it's not looking good.

Finally we discover that the ReactOS Balance Manager does .... nothing. It enters a loop which starts out by doing a wait for an event (fine, it's inherent to the task), and then switches on the result. But the code in the arms of the switch are commented out (the commented out code does a subset of the stuff in the NT code). The loop does nothing, just sits blocking in a loop forever. Why does this code in ReactOS exist if it does nothing?

It's the same story for the other big function in this file, KiScanReadyQueues. The code is virtually identical, line for line, with minor formatting and occasional trivial naming differences. Even the assertions are identical.

I'm not alleging anything specific or illegal, just comparing a small part of both codebases. However given what I've just seen, I wouldn't touch ReactOS with a barge pole. The Microsoft guy's complaint is entirely understandable.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20345645

But these are typically filling the usecases of productivity applications, not ‘engines’.

Microsoft Word doesn’t run its grammar checker as an external service and shunt JSON over a localhost socket to get spelling and style suggestions.

Photoshop doesn’t install a background service to host filters.

The closest pattern I can think of is the ‘language servers’ model used by IDEs to handle autosuggest - see https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ - but the point of that is to enable many to many interop - multiple languages supporting multiple IDEs. Is that the expected usecase for local language assistants and image generators?

If you tried writing code like the one above, your Rust LSP should already be telling you that what you're doing is unacceptable:

A language server is an external program that follows the Language Server Protocol. The LSP specification defines what type of messages a language server can receive, and also how it should respond. The idea here is that any tool that follows the LSP specification can communicate with a language server.

> There's a strange dance of IDEs coming and going, with their idiosyncracies and partial plugins.

The Language Server Protocol [1] is the best thing to happen to text editors. Any editor that speaks it gets IDE features. Now if only they'd adopt the Debug Adapter Protocol [2]...

[1] https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/

[2] https://microsoft.github.io/debug-adapter-protocol/

The Gno Language Server (gnols) is an implementation of the Language Server Protocol (LSP) for the Gno programming language. It is similar to the equivalent “gopls” project for Go, as they can be plugged into your code editor through extensions and allow you to access handy features, such as autocompletion, formatting, and compile-time warnings/errors. Gnols makes writing code simpler, working with several editors to suit your preferences. To try it out, visit the CONTRIBUTING.md file, which contains instructions to get you started. Our current documentation targets Vim, Neovim, and SublimeText, but can likely be used with any editor that supports LSP. Feel free to contribute to improving Gnols and adding more features. It’s well-written, and simple to dive into the code and add more capabilities.

Honestly, you should read some of the docs [0] if these are the sorts of questions you're asking.

[0] https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/

hey HN. this is a Language Server[0] designed specifically for Postgres. A language server adds features to IDEs (VSCode, NeoVim, etc) - features like auto-complete, go-to-definition, or documentation on hover, etc.

there have been previous some attempts at adding Postgres support to code editors. usually these attempts implement a generic SQL parser and then offer various "flavours" of SQL.

This attempt is different because it uses the actual Postgres parser to do the heavy-lifting. This is done via libg_query, an excellent C library for accessing the PostgreSQL parser outside of the server. We feel this is a better approach because it gives developers 100% confidence in the parser, and it allows us to keep up with the rapid development of Postgres.

this is still in early development, and mostly useful for testers/collaborators. the majority of work is still ahead, but we've verified that the approach works. we're making it public now so that we can develop it in the open with input from the community.

a lot of the credit belongs to pganalyze[1] for their work on libg_query, and to psteinroe (https://github.com/psteinroe) who the creator and maintainer of the LSP.

[0] LSP: https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/

[1] pganalyze: https://pganalyze.com/

See: https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/1164

The nxls is a language server based on the Language Server Protocol (LSP) and acts as the “brain” of Nx Console. It analyzes your Nx workspace and provides information on it, including code completion and more.

LSP stands for "Language Server Protocol", which defines how a language server and an editor (client) can communicate to provide code navigation, completion, etc. (source). Traditional IDE's would have something similar to this baked-in already, but proprietary to their software/language; whereas LSP is an open standard, so anything could implement it.