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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,85034d1ac78a66eb X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-03-17 13:37:00 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: James Ross Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada Operating System Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 15:36:48 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: References: <3c77b476.322111671@news.cis.dfn.de> <3C88E0D1.89161C16@despammed.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:21378 Date: 2002-03-17T15:36:48-06:00 List-Id: > >> - 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