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From: geoff@desint.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: CD ROMs to use 68000 OS9 (or DEC Files-11)
Message-ID: <208@desint.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Apr-86 14:46:10 EST
Article-I.D.: desint.208
Posted: Mon Apr 21 14:46:10 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Apr-86 22:45:01 EST
References: <17347@rochester.ARPA> <333@ius2.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Distribution: net
Organization: SAH Consulting, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 29
Xref: watmath net.micro.6809:799 net.micro.68k:1644

In article <333@ius2.cs.cmu.edu> ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu.UUCP writes:

> Hierarchical, tree-structured filesystems are 'in' now, but what about the 
> more general digraph format, where a file or directory can be in more than one
> directory?  (Unix sort of does this, but there is only one parent directory
> at each point in the tree, referenced by ..).

This is an old idea that has been tried more than once, including in earlier
versions of Unix.  To my knowledge, every attempt on a read-write file
system has been a dismal failure.  The problem is that there are just too
many ways it can bite you.  Probably the most common is the way linked
files bit Unix-er's:  some poor schmuck does 'cp msg /bin/mail' to install
msg as the default mailer, not realizing that in the process he just wiped
out /bin/rmail.

It is an open question whether this would be a problem in read-only file
systems.

BTW, in passing I must put in my 2 cents' worth on Files-11.  I am all
too intimately familiar with the design of Files-11, as well as a large
number of comparative systems (file system design is one of my
subspecialties).  Files-11 has a remarkable number of serious design
flaws, along with less-serious howlers like their general principle of
"store all data in the least-manipulable format, especially if that
takes up extra space".
-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	{hplabs,ihnp4}!trwrb!desint!geoff