Re:Ask HN: Why don't file systems and OS's provide file syst...
by klodolph on Saturday July 23, 2022 @01:51AM
(#32200740)
Our existing file APIs already provide abstractions that are both expensive and have no clear best design.
There’s a lot that these APIs hide from you in order to make it so you can pretend that this is the 1970s and your file is essentially a piece of tape. We’ve then built filesystems and directory structures on top of this piecemeal. The abstraction covers all these fancy journaling structures and a whole page cache.
For something that dives into the consequences, the classic paper “Don’t stack your log on my log”
There’s a lot that these APIs hide from you in order to make it so you can pretend that this is the 1970s and your file is essentially a piece of tape. We’ve then built filesystems and directory structures on top of this piecemeal. The abstraction covers all these fancy journaling structures and a whole page cache.
For something that dives into the consequences, the classic paper “Don’t stack your log on my log”
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/inflow14/infl...