Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269684AbUICNTy (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:19:54 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269675AbUICNTy (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:19:54 -0400 Received: from dsl092-149-163.wdc2.dsl.speakeasy.net ([66.92.149.163]:38923 "EHLO localhost") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269689AbUICNQs (ORCPT ); Fri, 3 Sep 2004 09:16:48 -0400 Subject: Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives From: Brian Beattie To: Christer Weinigel Cc: "Martin J. Bligh" , Hans Reiser , Linus Torvalds , David Masover , Jamie Lokier , Horst von Brand , Adrian Bunk , viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk, Christoph Hellwig , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Alexander Lyamin aka FLX , ReiserFS List In-Reply-To: References: <20040826150202.GE5733@mail.shareable.org> <200408282314.i7SNErYv003270@localhost.localdomain> <20040901200806.GC31934@mail.shareable.org> <20040902002431.GN31934@mail.shareable.org> <413694E6.7010606@slaphack.com> <4136A14E.9010303@slaphack.com> <4136C876.5010806@namesys.com> <4136E0B6.4000705@namesys.com> <14260000.1094149320@flay> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1094217399.2954.9.camel@kokopelli> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 09:16:40 -0400 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2089 Lines: 45 On Thu, 2004-09-02 at 14:38, Christer Weinigel wrote: > "Martin J. Bligh" writes: > > > > For 30 years nothing much has happened in Unix filesystem semantics > > > because of sheer cowardice > > > > Or because it works fine, and isn't broken. > > I've heard the same argument a lot of times. People complaining that > Unix is so seventies because it sticks to the old boring philosophy of > everything is a file and that a file is a stream of bytes, nothing > more. Modern operating systems such as VMS with basic database > handling in the OS itself, or MacOS or NT with named streams is so > much more modern. Why don't we get with the times? Actually the handleing of special filesystem features in the OS is an OLD idea. VMS is actually not more modern than Unix, it is older than Unix owing much to earlier OS's such as RSX-11. It was a great insight on the part of Ritche and Thompson that the kernel should present a file as a byte stream and that the interpretation of the contents of a file is the province of the application, not the operating system. Now it maybe, that there are features that can only be provided by adding support in the kernel, but we should be very careful not to be distracted by what we see as new wizbang features. The filesystem as a database has been tried before, ISAM is a very old concept. > > It may be because just because of the simplicity it's fairly easy to > use, harder to break och does one thing well. If you want structured > storage, use a database, on top of the low level primitives, or use > multiple files in a directory. Why complicate things? > > /Christer -- Brian Beattie LFS12947 | "Honor isn't about making the right choices. beattie@beattie-home.net | It's about dealing with the consequences." www.beattie-home.net | -- Midori Koto - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/