Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Why are news articles separate files?
Message-ID: <1988Sep11.002044.7701@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <471@icus.uucp> <1988Aug26.160040.22326@utzoo.uucp> <dr3GK#1z79sO=eric@snark.UUCP> <5239@hoptoad.uucp> <1407@spp2.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 88 00:20:44 GMT

In article <1407@spp2.UUCP> simpson@spp2.UUCP (Scott Simpson) writes:
>>The Unix file system *is* a database, and one of the better designed ones.
>
>I think most people would disagree with you on this.  Database systems
>generally have some sort of typing mechanism...
>Indeed, this typing mechanism is not even built into the file system,
>but rather enforced by the tools that use it.  Also, generally
>databases have some model of relationships.  The Unix file system has
>no such concept.  Does the Unix file system know that a *.o file is an
>end product of a compiler?  I think not.

By and large, these are features, not bugs.  The more built-in knowledge
a file system has, the less versatile it is, and the less well it copes
with needs not foreseen by its designers.  The same is true of database
systems.

If you want an example, a .o file is not *necessarily* the product
of a compiler.  It can be the result of a prior loader run, and hence
the product of several different compilers.  Not imaginary -- I've had
uses for a .o file that was the combined result of C and assembler code,
with some of the code being generated automatically (by an awk program)
from still other sources.  Try finding a database system that can cope
with *that* relationship in a useful way.

Actually, the Unix file system *does* have a concept of relationships
between files.  It's an extension to the basic filesystem, rather than an
integral part of it.  See the make(1) manual page.  Note that "make" *can*
handle the relationship described above!
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
