From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <6b21211797cc4b5ff93802313f2fd94c@terzarima.net> References: <6b21211797cc4b5ff93802313f2fd94c@terzarima.net> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 09:47:06 -0700 Message-ID: From: David Leimbach To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=000e0cd1a1fc7a53550493c43552 Subject: Re: [9fans] A little more ado about async Tclunk Topicbox-Message-UUID: 72283696-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 --000e0cd1a1fc7a53550493c43552 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 8:49 AM, Charles Forsyth wrote: > > things up with standard (as opposed to synthetic) file systems? > > why should a "synthetic" file system (actually they are all synthetic, i > think) > be considered not "standard"? i thought file systems were the common > currency in the system. > > All file systems are synthetic, some are backed by disk blocks, or other goo. File systems are nothing more than a namespace abstraction on X, where you get to decide what X is if you're implementing one. This is what I've been trying to communicate to my software development teams last year, and they very nearly got it :-). I think functional programming or at least category theory gets you into these upper level abstract ways of thinking that help with making such nonsense into sense. (I'm not sure that last sentence really parses, but since I've lost my backspace key, there it is) Dave --000e0cd1a1fc7a53550493c43552 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 8:49 AM, Charles= Forsyth <for= syth@terzarima.net> wrote:
> things up with standard (as opposed to synthetic) fi= le systems?

why should a "synthetic" file system (actually they are all= synthetic, i think)
be considered not "standard"? i thought file systems were the com= mon currency in the system.



All file systems are synthetic, = some are backed by disk blocks, or other goo. =A0File systems are nothing m= ore than a namespace abstraction on X, where you get to decide what X is if= you're implementing one.

This is what I've been trying to communicate to my = software development teams last year, and they very nearly got it :-).

I think functional programming or at least category th= eory gets you into these upper level abstract ways of thinking that help wi= th making such nonsense into sense. =A0(I'm not sure that last sentence= really parses, but since I've lost my backspace key, there it is)

Dave
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