lkml.org 
[lkml]   [1999]   [Jun]   [23]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: (reiserfs) Re: I discussed reading directories as files with jra, Stallman, and

On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, Bill Huey wrote:

> Are you telling me that you, being a Unix/Linux, person can't handle
> FTPing a multistream file with all those user-unfriendly tar options ?

yes. Linux doesnt _want_ to deal with restrictive, application-specific
complexity like 'resource forks'.

> Watch how "find" chokes on Linux/Unix/Win32 systems and then do the
> same search on crappy MacOS machine that's got a 32 bit DOS extender for
> a VM subsystem and blow the all the Linux/Unix/Win32 away from having all
> those dorky "dot" ("." <---) pathetically slow down the search.

you havent tried this, have you? The new 2.2 kernel includes a rather fast
file namespace cache implementation, it takes ~5 microseconds to look up a
file. Too slow?

> You can just search the data fork for content.

why should we add such a restrictive construct to the kerenel, if we
already have a mechanism that does this and more.

> File suffix MIME determination is just about the most brain-dead/annoying
> thing. Replace them with per file attributes for MIME determination, etc...

no. resource forks are only useful in a very limited sense. We dont want
resource forks for the same reason we do not want to put SQL parsers and
Cobol compilers into the kernel. It's up to the application how it uses
the file namespace - directories are a perfect (and more generic because
recursive) construct to store multiple attributes.

Are MacOS resource forks recursive? No. Can MacOS resource forks be files?
No. Can MacOS resource fork attributes have different permissions as the
base file? No. Can MacOS attributes be symbolic linked across files to
save space and be more generic? No. Can MacOS resource fork attributes be
different things to different users in a multiuser environment? No.
Directories are all 'Yes' to those questions, and they are extremely fast
with 2.2. Whats your problem with directories?

-- mingo


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2005-03-22 13:52    [W:0.185 / U:0.920 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site