Name: Anonymous 2018-11-18 8:59
We need to KILL the directory. It's a somewhat useful system that has gone from a shell/file manager abstraction to a central piece of the OS' operation. The hard-coding of some conventions some people thought might be a pretty good idea has stained the file-system, and the results of this are apparent:
1. In most filesystems, you can't have a directory and a file by the same name
2. Enforced case insensitivity for absolutely no reason at all
3. Arbitrary characters related to shell functionality are reserved and can't be used in file or directory names (fortunately UNIX has averted this through shells' usage as \ as an escape character)
Programs should theoretically be able to handle relative paths so long as an abstract "present working directory" variable is set, though of course these "directories" only exist as a shell variable.
Permissions should be assigned file by file, which shouldn't be any great issue.
This thread can also serve as general filesystem discussion after one guy tells me why I'm wrong, I guess. Here's a tip for that person: you can't.
For now, we discuss how to implement a flat file system and KILL THE DIRECTORY, short of building our own operating system from the ground up. Do we ditch GNU software? Could you feasibly run some sort of program which translates flat files to those programs which can only deal with files from the older, traditional directory-based files? Do we patch every piece of software we use? The directory jew has firmly rooted itself in filesystem society, but it can be defeated through perseverance.
1. In most filesystems, you can't have a directory and a file by the same name
2. Enforced case insensitivity for absolutely no reason at all
3. Arbitrary characters related to shell functionality are reserved and can't be used in file or directory names (fortunately UNIX has averted this through shells' usage as \ as an escape character)
Programs should theoretically be able to handle relative paths so long as an abstract "present working directory" variable is set, though of course these "directories" only exist as a shell variable.
Permissions should be assigned file by file, which shouldn't be any great issue.
This thread can also serve as general filesystem discussion after one guy tells me why I'm wrong, I guess. Here's a tip for that person: you can't.
For now, we discuss how to implement a flat file system and KILL THE DIRECTORY, short of building our own operating system from the ground up. Do we ditch GNU software? Could you feasibly run some sort of program which translates flat files to those programs which can only deal with files from the older, traditional directory-based files? Do we patch every piece of software we use? The directory jew has firmly rooted itself in filesystem society, but it can be defeated through perseverance.