From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Fri,  5 Oct 2007 18:37:51 -0700
From: Geoffrey Avila <avlg@sdsc.edu>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] 2 things
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Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.30.0710051755330.28724-100000@multivac.sdsc.edu>
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> >
> > Isn't that a very explicitly un-plan9-like thing to want?
>
> that's not un-plan9-like at all.

Ok, I guess I just can't see it; While it may be possible (and good!) to
let your plan 9 fileserver be a data repository, I'd think that good
middleware needs to be OS-agnostic, so as to be isolated from the details
of things like filesystem implementation.

>
> > People are used to a big heavy
> > library/class thing to call on to do something.
> >
> is this a good thing or just something we live with?
>
> ron
>
I'm not sure if it's good or bad. It seems to be the way modern
environments expect you to write programs that talk to each other.

I'll plead the fifth. My lack of a CS degree absolves me from having an
official opinion!:)

Why coulden't the sort of Grid Middleware (acck! thppt! sorry...) facility
that the irods people want to make be an integral part of the OS;
something that could be manipulated via mount & cat & echo &c.?

My guess is that it is asking a lot of Unix to try and make it work that
way, in a manner that is reliable and dependable and cross-platform enough
to be useful. What the hell else do we use? Windows? It has the virtue at
least, of ubiquity...