Latest Trolling? The Linux Kernel In Perl

For those in need of some light reading this weekend, the latest comical proposal hitting the Linux kernel mailing list is to have a new project writing portions of the kernel in the Perl programming language.

An alleged university student is interested in writing code for the Linux kernel in Perl over the commonly-used C or even Assembly. The thread author, Antti Heikkinen, wants to explore writing an operating system in Perl as he's taken a beginner course into the language and he likes the language a lot. He notes, "Very impressive ability to make many thing work, interpret or can compile also."

According to his classmates and professors, "they say LINUX kernel is too big and bloat, run poor with too many developer. And too much quick decision from leader with ego is too big and bloat too, kekeke."

This beginner Perl programmer doesn't want the whole Linux kernel written in the language, just certain portions. Those wanting to continue this read can head over to the Indiana kernel mailing list.

A kernel in Perl is rather silly given it's a high-level and interpreted language, etc. At least it makes for some light-hearted weekend reading just past the holidays and entertaining yet technical discussions within the forums. Then again, we've seen Lua scripting added to the NetBSD kernel. Lua in NetBSD is mostly being used for debugging and the prototyping of new features.