title: How much of an operating system could be written in, say, Python?
body: <p>This is a pretty-much theoretical question, but..</p>
  
  <p><strong>How much of an operating system could be written in a language like Python, Ruby, Perl, or Lisp, Haskell etc?</strong></p>
  
  <p>It seems like a lot of the stuff like init.d could trivially be done in a scripting language. One of the firewall-device-OS's (<a href="http://m0n0.ch/wall/" rel="noreferrer">m0n0wall</a>) uses PHP for its system-configuration (including on boot). And one could argue that "emacs is an OS, mostly written in Lisp"..</p>
  
  <p>Of course there are bits that would have to be assembly/C, but how much could be regular .py/rb/.pl/.el/.hk files..? It might not have the best performance, but it would be, by far, the most easiest-to-modify OS ever...</p>