Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: What constitutes a good OS?
Message-ID: <5681@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 2 Feb 91 02:56:22 GMT
References: <41907@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991Jan17.004509.5435@kithrup.COM> <1991Jan17.122438@hermes.ladc.bull.com>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 13

>Hmm.  McKusick and Karels (and a guy named Chris Landaur (sp?)) disagree with
>you.  According to them, directories originally were basically plaintext
>files, and handled no differently than other files.  This caused problems,
>though, and was changed.  All this was very early on in Unix evolution.

If by "McKusick and Karels" you're referring to the book by Leffler,
McKusick, Karels, and Quarterman, *The Design and Implementation of the
4.3BSD UNIX(R) Operating System", well, I checked all the references to
"directory" from the index, and NONE of them claim that "directories
originally were plaintext files".  They may have said elsewhere that
*VERY* early on - as in "prior to V6, and perhaps prior to V5" - they
were plaintext files, but they most definitely positively absolutely
were *NOT* plain-text files in V6 or later UNIX systems from AT&T.