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From: darrell@sdcsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.os,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Who needs files?
Message-ID: <2907@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Thu, 26-Mar-87 12:15:59 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.2907
Posted: Thu Mar 26 12:15:59 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Mar-87 05:08:11 EST
Sender: darrell@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU
Organization: University of Linkoping, Sweden
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Xref: utgpu mod.os:118 comp.arch:668

In article <2859@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) writes:
>In article <2850@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> bagwill@decuac.DEC.COM (Bob Bagwill) writes:
>>
>> ... Why not define all storage as extended memory structures
>>that may be loaded as needed.  ...
>
> ... it makes device independence very hard. ...
>
>The other reason that you want files is that they have an existence and a
>naming structure separate from the programs that manipulate them, which is
>kind of unavoidable.  You as a human would probably rather call a file
>/usr/fred/games/source/pinball_bounce.c, while your program would rather
>have a nice handle like a memory address of 0x18723d70 or a file handle of 5.

I'd like to continue this defence for the file concept and to turn
the question the other way: Why not turn all memory into files?

The structured UNIX file tree is a very comfortable means for handling
big, non-uniform amounts of data. Much more comfortable than a uniform,
binary address space from zero to infinity. Even an address space from
zero to 2^16 (as on this PDP-11/70 called Obelix) seems too big and
unstructured to me. Why not continue the partitioning of data into
files and directories down to the variable/record/statement level?
Of course, we would then have to consider interpreting languages
with more overhead than todays optimized number-crunchers, but,
as computers as such become faster and smaller, we would have to find
a way to use their extra power anyhow :-).

I think this idea has been used to implement some virtual LISP and
SmallTalk machines, but these aren't too common.

To the comp.arch people:
		Who will invent the tree-structured memory chip?
--
Name:	Lars Aronsson
Snail:	Rydsvagen 256 A:10, S-582 48 Linkoping, Sweden
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