Episode 88: The Singularity Research OS with Galen Hunt

In this episode we talk to Galen Hunt about the Singularity
research OS. Galen is the head of Microsoft's OS Research Group
and, together with a team of about 30 other researches, has built
Singularity. We started our discussion by covering the basics of
Singularity: why it was designed, what the goals of the project are
as well as some of the architectural foundations of Singularity:
software isolated processes, contract-based channels and
manifest-based programs. In this context we also looked at the role
of the Spec# and Sing# programming languages and the role of static
analysis tools to statically verify important properties of a
singularity application. We then looked a little bit more closely
at the role of the kernel and how it is different from kernels in
traditional OSes. In a second part of the discussion we looked at
some of the experiments the group did based on the OS. These
include compile-time reflection, using hardware protection domains,
heterogenerous multiprocessing as well as the typed assembly
language We closed the conversation with a look at some of the
performance characteristics of Singularity, compatibility with
traditional operating systems and a brief look at how the findings
from Singularity influence product development at Microsoft.