Re: [9fans] Interested in improving networking in Plan 9

[Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Bakul Shah<bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com> wrote:
>
> ndb maps directly to a list of lisp's association lists but
> how would you map this to a synthetic fs? Something like
> <attr>/<value> to yield a tuple? For example:
>

My current intuition in these situations is to allow for both
interfaces -- top level aggregated queries as well as granular
hierarchical queries.  Both make sense for different reasons.

>
> 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.

          -eric