[rektide]

> I think the idea of a file being just a series of bytes and leaving the interpretation to the application is ingenious.

the file as an opaque box for applications to store a real data structure is poisonously anti-file. it's totally what files are, what we think of them, but imo, systems like 9p, or linux's procfs or sysfs are The True Way for files: small discrete pieces of data which are part of a system of directories tlthat express a larger compilated hierarchical system of data.

Files won, but only the stupidest wrongest version. Easy to copy and manage but utterly useless on their own, unscriptable, pointless eithout their complex applications there to use them.

I dont think db's/records are that interesting either. i think we just need to really try files. Fine grained files. As opposed to these big ole blobs the OS cant really interact with.

[remexre]

Don't you need mandatory locking of files and directories, or rather powerful transactional semantics for the filesystem then?

[rektide]

A lot of filesystems have snapshots. NTFS & others have transactional capabilities. I don't regard locking as necessary or helpful when the OS can provide these capabilities.