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From: acs@amdahl.UUCP (Tony Sumrall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Workbench improvements
Message-ID: <6311@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Apr-87 00:07:44 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.6311
Posted: Tue Apr 21 00:07:44 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Apr-87 00:36:25 EST
References: <8704172157.AA15623@cory.Berkeley.EDU> <3050@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: acs@amdahl.UUCP (Tony Sumrall)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 46

In article <3050@sunybcs.UUCP> jmpiazza@gort.UUCP (Joseph M. Piazza) writes:
>	After following previous discussions I wonder how many people
>realize that the Mac collects icons and other info from each file and puts
>in a directory file called "Desktop."  I also wonder if other people realize
>that the Mac isn't nearly as slow as the Amiga for directory listings.

Did we discuss this approach when the discussion about .info files began
(way back when)?  I *like* the idea of a directory whose structure
parallels the root and contains nothing but .info files (e.g. if
"df0:junk/junk pgm" has an icon it's in "df0:Icons/junk/junk pgm.info"):
  *  If you're using WB it only searches the Icon directory to display the
     icon.
  *  If you're *not* using WB it only searches the specified dir.
I realize that this will require at least *2* accesses in order to run the
program from WB but I must tell you that I'd prefer that to the horrendous
errors that can occur upon the system attempting (unsuccessfully) to
compress a .info file after the user has run a program that:
  1) Deletes filex
  2) Creates filex
  3) Creates an icon file for filex
while simultaneously doing the same thing from another program.  Get 1/2
dozen of these things going and I think my poor li'l drive would gronk
itself right out of existence! :-)  Further, since all requests will have
to operate on the same file requests must operate on the same file, they'd
have to be single-threaded.  A delete req would have to:
  1)  Read the whole info file in
  2)  Munge out the deleted icon (i.e. delete and compress)
  3)  Write out the whole file
all while the info file is locked.  A create request would be fairly
simple since all it'd have to do is append the info file.

I can just picture some poor li'l WB-only person wondering why the drive
is shaking the computer desk to bits after a few days of "just changing
my MaxiPlan worksheet a little bit".

I've probably gone on far too long but, like I said earlier, how about a
parallel structure for the icon files only?

>	joe piazza


-- 
Tony Sumrall acs@amdahl.amdahl.com <=> ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,seismo}!amdahl!acs

[ Opinions expressed herein are the author's and should not be construed
  to reflect the views of Amdahl Corp. ]