From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
From: "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb+usenet@becket.net>
Message-ID: <87vgglyaq1.fsf@becket.becket.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
References: <20011107125817.80067199BB@mail.cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9
Date: Thu,  8 Nov 2001 10:39:18 +0000
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 193b434a-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

rob@plan9.bell-labs.com (rob pike) writes:

> So again, why?  Give me an example of something your notion
> accomplishes that we can't do now and that is worth doing.

There are several advantages:

1) The same tools should work on all file names, however set up, to
   create them, remove them, rename them, and so forth.
2) Whether a file name mapping is per-user or not should be decoupled
   from what the user sees.

The principal goal is unification: a goal that says to reduce wherever
possible the number of ways there are of doing the same thing, thus
resulting in a simplification of the system.  Unification is not the
only goal, but it's an important one.