Re:SQLite briefing for Linux kernel hackers (2019)
by dahart on Saturday November 21, 2020 @04:07PM
(#25172782)
The API doesn’t need to expose whether data is preserved on power loss. Normally these days, it is, and it’s implemented underneath the API.
I don’t think the POSIX API is perfect by any stretch, but there is a real downside to going lower level, in terms of productivity, in terms of mis-use and accidents, in terms of security, and in terms of ability to support old hardware, heterogeneous storage devices, networked storage devices, etc. If there was a huge and unanimous demand for the low level features SQLite uses, the API would already expose those features.
APIs sometimes are too high level, and sometimes are too low level. Getting it wrong in either direction has negative consequences. And getting it exactly right is hard. In any case, I’m unconvinced that the Linux filesystem API is abstracted at the wrong level or represents a good example of an API that is too high level.
I don’t think the POSIX API is perfect by any stretch, but there is a real downside to going lower level, in terms of productivity, in terms of mis-use and accidents, in terms of security, and in terms of ability to support old hardware, heterogeneous storage devices, networked storage devices, etc. If there was a huge and unanimous demand for the low level features SQLite uses, the API would already expose those features.
APIs sometimes are too high level, and sometimes are too low level. Getting it wrong in either direction has negative consequences. And getting it exactly right is hard. In any case, I’m unconvinced that the Linux filesystem API is abstracted at the wrong level or represents a good example of an API that is too high level.