Re: [9fans] Plan 9

["Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+usenet@becket.net>]

presotto@closedmind.org writes:

> I take it that you're suggesting that the file system has no structure
> other than being an object repository.  It's up to each user to
> impose order by having his or her own object linkage.

This is certainly the nutshell version.

> It is indeed an interesting idea.  It seems that sharing views would
> also be desirable since you would need to communicate with others.

Sharing is totally important, and most users will want to inherit a
fairly similar default vie.

> You'ld also have to have some form of persistence of the structural
> information or else run possibly billion line scripts every time
> you connect to the system.  You'ld also need a naming scheme so that
> you could reference the objects for the links.

The cost of running such scripts is one thing that makes kludging this
into Plan 9 a bad idea; I hadn't thought of that explicitly.

I think that it's not actually necessary to have a separate naming
scheme, except for the case of privileged maintenance procedures that
want to be able to get at every object.

> So, it this what you are intending?  Sorry its taken so long to
> figure it out but your descriptions have been less than clear.

That's pretty close indeed.  Part of the difficulty has been that I'm
trying to work out the idea, not claiming that it's fully formed.