Re: Ada Operating System

[James Ross <rem.jr@rem.webross.com>]

>
>>   - Total separation of Data from Applications.  
>
>Not sure what you mean by that.  Sounds like you're outlawing compilers,
>linkers, and loaders, which treat programs as data.
>
>- Bob

Well, actually what I meant to say was a separation between Data and
Applications at a "User" level so to speak.  Not necessarily at a
system or development level.   I think Linux does a better job at this
than Windows but is far from ideal.  (I don't like the *nix way either
because there is no consistency, it's whatever / wherever the
developer decides) 

In the spirit of Ada enforcing rules about coding, then an Ada OS
should be just as anal about enforcing a single standard about where
everything goes, and how it works, in the system.  How things are
named, version info / files / libraries, how things are shared and
tracked should be a function of the OS and not left up to the
programmer to invent his own way every time.

The idea would be to only allow files (including configuration,
documents, data, etc) to be stored in defined areas.  The API's for
this would force a consistent method so there would no guessing where
*anything* was when it was time to back things up, upgrade,  wipe it
clean, etc...  There would be several ways of doing this that would
still allow the users to organize things in his/her way -- especially
if the native file system was based on a database structure as apposed
to a directory tree structure.

Here is what I am getting at:  I always seem to get stuck doing some
PC support / maintenance for other people that are pretty much
clueless.  I ask them, OK, I am going to clear your hard drive of
everything,  are you sure that all your files are backed up to the
network?  Oh yes, yes.  Then a day or two later I invariably find out
that no, they lost stuff because files were buried somewhere in the
"Program Files" directory tree or somewhere else.  Of course it
happens to my own computers when dealing with configuration settings.
I invariably loose most of my settings for the apps installed when
reinstalling Windows from scratch, not a fun thing :) 
JR