Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 09:09:10 -0400 From: Michael Sinz <msinz@wgate.com> To: chris@calldei.com Cc: Steve Roome <stephen_roome@yahoo.com>, Keith Stevenson <keith.stevenson@louisville.edu>, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Should URL's be pervasive. Message-ID: <000003ff0207cf07d1@[192.168.1.4]> References: <20010830111018.A97057@ussenterprise.ufp.org> <20010830111708.A20961@osaka.louisville.edu> <20010830232109.A1077@dylan.home> <00000e180511ee07d1@[192.168.1.4]> <000010020513d807d1@[192.168.1.4]>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Chris Costello wrote:
>
> On Friday, August 31, 2001, Michael Sinz wrote:
> > I too have been hoping for (and building internal tools) that work
> > this way. I really wish you could just do:
> >
> > open("nfs://server.name.dom/directory/file.txt")
> >
> > and have it work. That would be nice. (Replace the above with
> > ftp: or http: or whatever other protocol would provide read and/or write
> > access.)
> >
> > Anyway, I don't see it happening quickly but I don't see it as a bad thing
> > and I would guess that it will eventually get to that point. (The network
> > includes your local machine so why not)
>
> Whatever happened to not distinguishing different types of file
> systems from one another in pathnames? And are you suggesting that
> we add network overhead (I'd still imagine lo0 can't help speeding
> things up...) to file system accesses?
What I was trying to say is that there is no reason that I should care
if the file is local or not. Why should a program have to specifically
offer support to edit that file from an FTP site. (EMACS and other editors
have added transparent FTP support, but that was extra work for them)
Just as the OS support having multiple storage devices and media and the
software does not need to know if the file is on a SCSI or IDE disk or if
it is on DISK 2 partition 3 or DISK 5 partition 1, why should it know if
it is local or on the machine beside it or on the machine on the other side
of the world?
Now, the OS (from a technical level) should be smart enough to handle not
doing actual NFS (or FTP or HTTP or whatever protocol) to its local disk
when it can. (Sometimes going in via FTP to the local machine gets you
in as a different user and thus gets you different access rights so the
level of complexity is not always obviously trivial)
Anyway, the point is that a file that I can access should be a file I
can access via VI or MORE or EMACS or GREP or any other tool without
having those tools each having FTP and HTTP and SSH support built in to
them. The OS should handle it.
--
Michael Sinz ---- Worldgate Communications ---- msinz@wgate.com
A master's secrets are only as good as
the master's ability to explain them to others.
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?000003ff0207cf07d1>