I guess, compared to everything-is-a-file, a DB could be a regulated and formatted way of storing information. Instead of millions of file formats/types, you end up with millions of DB schema. I’m not sure if this is going to help.
It’s a cool idea. It means that many apps become easier. An mp3 player, for example, doesn’t have to keep a precompiled database of parsed mp3 tags, it can instead offload that work to the filesystem (once those tags have been turned into file attributes). It also means you can have it play “all mp3s on the disk”, rather than building lists of music directories, etc. It can be a remarkable toolset for an application developer.
In fact, IIRC, the Haiku addressbook app uses files that have no content, only attributes. The file name is the contact name, and everything else is added through database operations.
ls providing a list of files means you don’t have to call with certain flags to get the information you want.
It also means that you don’t have to make sure every tool includes a “parse input” and “format output” layer, since there’s already some structure (this doesn’t rule it out entirely but it means you can survive without it)
I bet a lot more people would be OK doing ops work if you could operate with tools at the same level as most development work
tldr: everything is a DB entry.
I guess, compared to everything-is-a-file, a DB could be a regulated and formatted way of storing information. Instead of millions of file formats/types, you end up with millions of DB schema. I’m not sure if this is going to help.
Didn’t BeOS already do this 20 years ago…?
Note this article is from 1996 or earlier. The idea was definitely in the air.
It really irks me when documents like this have no dates attached to them.
I did not know that. Thanks!
edit: oh wow, that site’s a treasure trove
The year should be in the title, really.
Haiku has reimplimented it.
It’s a cool idea. It means that many apps become easier. An mp3 player, for example, doesn’t have to keep a precompiled database of parsed mp3 tags, it can instead offload that work to the filesystem (once those tags have been turned into file attributes). It also means you can have it play “all mp3s on the disk”, rather than building lists of music directories, etc. It can be a remarkable toolset for an application developer.
In fact, IIRC, the Haiku addressbook app uses files that have no content, only attributes. The file name is the contact name, and everything else is added through database operations.
Even Microsoft took a crack at the idea in the early 00’s.
Many mainframe operating systems have record-oriented filesystems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record-oriented_filesystem
lsproviding a list of files means you don’t have to call with certain flags to get the information you want.It also means that you don’t have to make sure every tool includes a “parse input” and “format output” layer, since there’s already some structure (this doesn’t rule it out entirely but it means you can survive without it)
I bet a lot more people would be OK doing ops work if you could operate with tools at the same level as most development work