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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Moving away from app-centric mimetypes (e.g. kword)
From:       "Steven D'Aprano" <dippy () mikka ! net ! au>
Date:       2002-05-18 3:25:26
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On Fri, 17 May 2002 04:47, David Golden wrote:
> I think that Hans Reiser's paper on the expansion of filesystem
> to include set-theoretic classification notions should be required
> reading.
>
> http://www.namesys.com/whitepaper.html

Hmmm. I read it. Speaking as a user, I say, "who cares?" Its all just 
implementation, and (speaking as a user again) I don't care if the file 
system is implemented as a database or one giant linear list of bytes.

> ls [subject/[illegal strike] to/elves from/santa ultimatum]

It seems to me that Reiser's proposed new file system could be 
implemented *right now* with a decent file search utility. Maybe 
Reiser's way would be more efficient, by building in all that 
functionality into the file system instead of having to build indexes 
and whatnot, but his system doesn't actually give anything *new*.

> Next, just incorporate the  coda/intermezzo-like disconnected
> operation/ network fs for this hypothetical next -gen reiserfs,  and
> lo, the coolest FS on earth.
>
> If you think about it, too, the most logical way to do metadata
> is to blur the distincition between directories and files -

I've thought about it, and I don't see this at all. If you are speaking 
from a nuts-and-bolts implementation perspective, then that's fine, but 
users don't care about that.

Speaking as a user, I may or may not want to apply metadata to a 
directory, but otherwise the concept of a directory as a place you 
store related files is too useful to get rid of. Why do you want to do 
this?

> kword and staroffice already do this - 

They do? Explain please.

One thing that struck me from Reisner's paper: he writes,

"False hits will occur, but for large systems that's better than asking
the user to learn structure."

Obviously he has never tries to search the web for something popular 
then. The larger the system, the WORSE false hits become.

Suppose I want to find the name of the skeptical Imperial officer 
choked by Darth Vader in the original Star Wars, on the Death Star. So 
I try searching on Google for "star wars", and get 1.9 MILLION hits. 
Arghhh. False hits on a large system are BAD!

Even search for "star wars darth vader choke force imperial death star 
officer" gives 372 hits. Still too many. So I give up and look it up in 
the Star Wars novel. Or at least I would if I could be bothered.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano

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