From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,39579ad87542da0e X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8 X-Received: by 10.180.76.115 with SMTP id j19mr4599012wiw.2.1369279405390; Wed, 22 May 2013 20:23:25 -0700 (PDT) Path: fw11ni1136wic.0!nntp.google.com!feeder1.cambriumusenet.nl!82.197.223.108.MISMATCH!feeder2.cambriumusenet.nl!feed.tweaknews.nl!194.109.133.86.MISMATCH!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed3.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!border4.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.panservice.it!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: =?utf-8?Q?Yannick_Duch=C3=AAne_=28Hibou57?= =?utf-8?Q?=29?= Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Seeking for papers about tagged types vs access to subprograms Date: Wed, 15 May 2013 14:32:19 +0200 Organization: Ada @ Home Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: ll7JxPeHtfBeoFl5nDW1Dg.user.speranza.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Opera Mail/12.15 (Linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable Date: 2013-05-15T14:32:19+02:00 List-Id: Le Wed, 15 May 2013 13:31:36 +0200, Peter C. Chapin = a =C3=A9crit: > The genius of the Linux (and Windows) way of representing files is tha= t = > the operating system does not need to know anything about the nature o= f = > the data being stored in the files. Thus new file types can be defined= = > by applications without any OS changes. This does push the burden of = > interpreting the file's format into the application but the benefit is= a = > more generic operating system. When one considers all the different = > kinds of files created by applications today, I can't imagine any othe= r = > way working well. I may see a better options: what about multiple views for a file? File = view drivers? Query interface to query what interface(s)/view(s) a file = = provides? A standard format to describe interfaces? Standardisation of a= = basic set of very common interface (which may be completed as the = technologies evolves)? Pushing this kind of responsibility to the applications, is the surest w= ay = to have a mess of non=E2=80=91interoperable things, wasting duplicates, = = inconsistencies, data corruption, applications guessing all the time, et= c = (and that's indeed how it goes so far). Just imagine what if each = applications was responsible of accessing devices or managing memory = pages. The comparison is not that much excessive: nor POSIX nor Linux = provides anything for mandatory locks on files (at least, Windows is = cleaner on that aspect), and it only works between cooperative = applications (modulo their bugs) and can be fully ignored accidentally o= r = worst, on purpose, by any other application. There is too much responsibilities left to applications in this area. Th= e = OS discharges itself from near to everything but storage devices access = = (or may be an OS is just a big device driver), which is just a way to sa= y = it provides near to no service at all here (except a stream of raw bytes= ), = and each possible view must be a duplicated feature in each application = = (or multiple shared and overlapping non=E2=80=91standardized libraries, = which ends = into others and similar issues). Even determination of the MIME type of a file does not work well, and ma= y = have to be fixed by some application (just think of `file` and `xdg-mime= ` = on Ubuntu, not always returning the same answer for a query). What the O= S = or environment does not provides, each application has to duplicate it, = = and may be wrong with or may miss some point. That's one of my biggest (*) grief with OS (at least widespread OS, as I= = don't known others nor old ones). (*) Another big one is about applications each believing it's the centre= = of the world, which comes with similar consequences: wasting with = duplications, inconsistencies, poor UI behaviour standardisation, = encumbered workspace, and so on. -- = =E2=80=9CSyntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.=E2=80=9D [1] =E2=80=9CStructured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.= =E2=80=9D [1] [1]: Epigrams on Programming =E2=80=94 Alan J. =E2=80=94 P. Yale Univers= ity