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From: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.acs.washington.edu (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Re^2: replacing the desktop metaphor (Why any metaphor?)
Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments
Message-ID: <584@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 89 04:38:44 GMT
References: <850@mtfmi.att.com> <673@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <223@torch.UUCP> <973@riddle.UUCP>
Sender: news@blake.acs.washington.edu
Reply-To: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.UUCP (Mark Crispin)
Organization: Mendou Zaibatsu, Tomobiki-Cho, Butsumetsu-Shi
Lines: 23


There's one problem with the "seamless filesystem" as exhibited by
Unix, and that is that there are sometimes instances when you really
do want the seams.  Specifically, I've had instances on Unix where I
was building/maintaining a parallel filesystem to the boot filesystem
and I would have killed to have the function of A:, B: (although I
would have used somewhat more imaginative names).  In other words, it
would have been nice if I could have done:
	% cp -r /b/*foo* mnt:
to copy all files and directories from /b/*foo* to corresponding names
on the filesystem that would result if the system was booted from the
device labelled mnt:.  I eventually decided that the easiest way to do
what I wanted was to tar it, cd to the desired base directory, and to
un-tar.

It isn't necessarily the best solution to allow a co-equal mounting at
the root with parallel access based on a syntax such as ":" (although
this is undeniably a way to do this).  I would rather have something
that lets you substitute all or part of the current tree path inside
some other part of that path.

I agree that forcing co-equal moutning at the root based upon a device
boundary is a loss.