Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!iconsys!caeco!i-core!ken
From: ken@i-core.UUCP (Ken MacLeod)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: What I'd like to see in the AppleShare of the 90's
Message-ID: <1990Jan15.231420.7103@i-core.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jan 90 23:14:20 GMT
References: <25862@cup.portal.com> <25184@brunix.UUCP>
Organization: Bitsko's Bar & Grill, Public Access, Salt Lake City, UT
Lines: 42

In article <25862@cup.portal.com>, MacUserLabs@cup.portal.com (Stephan - Somogyi) writes:
>gjb@cs.brown.edu (Greg Brail) writes:
> 
>>Currently, if the AppleShare connection is lost because the network
>>is unplugged or the server crashes, a dialog box appears saying you
>>lost the connection to the server, the server is disconnected and
>>your program crashes. If AppleShare instead put up a dialog box
>>saying "The server has been disconnected" and then waited until it
>>could reconnect, no one would lose their work.
> 
>You have *got* to be kidding. You mean that if my network connection
>goes down (for whatever reason) while I have a server mounted, you
>*want* the Mac to lock up? You would deem this a feature?!

  No, I wan't it to let me know that if I press "Disconnect" I might lose
something.  Given the chance, I (or someone who knows about the network)
can try to fix the problem before being forced to disconnect.

  Also, an app should have a non-purgable pre-loaded code that can dump
the document data to a recovery file when a disconnect-cannot reconnect
error is received.

  With more and more networks coming in, how 'bout a "Recovery Manager" that
an app registers it's data with.  In the case of not being able to function
any longer (no access to the rest of the app or data due to carrier loss,
unplugging, dogs chewing on the cord, power-loss, etc.) the app receives
the error and as gracefully as possible dies through the recovery manager.

  On system startup: "A copy of your document 'Foo' was saved when the
system/application 'Bar' lost power/crashed, it has been saved in the
'Crash' folder."  The program will have a module that will reconnect it's
document when everything is running again and the 'CRSH' file-type document
is opened.

  Crashing and/or losing data is not intuitive and is sure annoying.  With
this, virtual memory and hopefully process protection coming in, a little
sense of reliability would go a long way.  (Read: SALES! Hint, hint; do us
both a favor :-)
-- 
Ken MacLeod, Barkeep
Bitsko's Bar & Grill BBS, +1 801 269-0670
ken@i-core.uucp