Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!mattd From: mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: FST Idea (was Re: FST's) Message-ID: <36610@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 18 Nov 89 01:03:27 GMT Article-I.D.: apple.36610 References: <2634.cortland.info-apple@pro-houston> <5205@internal.Apple.COM> <3762@puff.cs.wisc.edu> Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA Lines: 54 In article jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) writes: > >The same applies to FST's: If you have the means and the will to write >a HFS FST, then DO IT and don't mind the talk on this net. If you >write it, people will use and love it. If it doesn't work with the >next system, then people will use the old system until there is an >update, or Apple sees the error of its ways. > >Don't be afraid to hack. It's the American thing to do. > >Jeremy Mereness There's a distinct difference between doing something the system does not do (like writing a new networking protocol or a user toolset for your application) and doing something reserved for the system (like writing an FST or stealing a system toolset number). Although people writing their own FSTs (hacking them out) might find something that's useful to them and others, the fact remains that there are basic differences between file systems, and applying an abstract system to a real, physical file system can result in unforeseen difficulties that would require changes to GS/OS. *Even if this were not true*, there are other problems. If I write an HFS FST that handles GS/OS attributes one way (suppose I keep the file type and the auxiliary type in the file type and creator type fields, instead of doing the filetype translation that Apple's done in Apple File Exchange, DuplicateIIgs and the AppleShare code) and Apple releases an HFS FST that handles these attributes a *different* way, most of the world is going to use Apple's way, especially the major developers. Then people who have been using my FST suddenly have several disks (or worse, a hard drive) full of information that they have no way to translate into something the world uses (you can't let GS/OS translate it; you can't have two FSTs for one volume). >If it doesn't work with the >next system, then people will use the old system until there is an >update, or Apple sees the error of its ways. This argument implies that when there is more than one way to do something, Apple will cave in and adopt the way that the first person did it. This is pretty far from likely. Apple learned their lessons about letting developers dictate the entire course of implementation when DOS 3.3 became unmanageable because the entry points couldn't move. Apple will probably do things the best way they know how, not the way they've always been done. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions expressed in this tome Send PERSONAL mail ONLY (please) to: | should not be construed to imply that Amer. Online: Matt DTS | Apple Computer, Inc., or any of its ThisNet: mattd@apple.com | subsidiaries, in whole or in part, ThatNet: (stuff)!ames!apple!mattd | have any opinion on any subject." Other mail by request only, please. | "So there." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------