On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Bakul Shah <bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com> wrote:
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:33:13 CDT Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>  wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Bakul Shah<bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com> wrote:
> >
> > An intriguing idea that can point toward a synth fs interface
> > to a dbms or search results.... But I don't think this would
> > be a lightweight interface.
> >
>
> The fact that its not immediately clear is what makes it a good
> research topic.  It will likely take several iterations to identify a
> "best fit" interface with the likely result that multiple
> interfaces/views are required.  I think there are precious little
> information on synthetic file system design, given its continuing
> popularity in the non-Plan-9 world, we could use more published
> wisdom/experiences from the evolution of various file-system based
> interfaces.

Oh I don't know.... Shoehorning a DB interface into a FS
interface doesn't feel right but stranger things have
happened.


There are some folk about who are working on a distributed spreadsheet (hypernumbers.com, there used to be a trial system up and lots of documents, but I'm not sure where that all went, and I can't be bothereed signing up just now, they're presenting at ICFP CUFP on Friday, so the company/project should still be properly alive).

Anyway, the idea they've got is that every cell in a spreadsheet has a URL and you can reference and use cells across a distributed space. Interesting idea, but I'm not entirely sure what to do with it, being spreadsheet-challenged myself.

Robby