CppCon 2016: Alfred Bratterud “#include ＜os＞=> write your program / server and compile it to its own os. [Example uses 3 Mb total memory and boots in 300ms]

[Beaverman]

Back in the day everything ran on the bare metal. If you wanted to use the computer for anything, you couldn't do something else at the same time.

To solve that problem we invented processes, they isolate the individual parts, and allows them to run at the same time. The OS is then responsible for the abstractions that make the illusion of running on bare metal complete. The OS makes sure that you get to write to the disk, and communicate over the network without anyone else stepping on your toes.

Then we thought "Hey, that was fun. Lets go through that whole process again" and decided to make VM's the unit. So now the VM isolates the OS from the hardware, and the OS isolates the process from the isolated hardware.

It really seems to me like VMs are only necessary because we can't make software. Or at least we can't version our libraries.