From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Hans Reiser Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 22:50:25 -0700 Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <41356321.4030307@namesys.com> References: <200408311931.i7VJV8kt028102@laptop11.inf.utfsm.cl> <41352279.7020307@slaphack.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Horst von Brand , Pavel Machek , Jamie Lokier , Chris Wedgwood , viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk, Linus Torvalds , Christoph Hellwig , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Alexander Lyamin aka FLX , ReiserFS List Return-path: Received: from rwcrmhc13.comcast.net ([204.127.198.39]:54234 "EHLO rwcrmhc13.comcast.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S268657AbUIAFuX (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Sep 2004 01:50:23 -0400 To: David Masover In-Reply-To: <41352279.7020307@slaphack.com> List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org Linus, you are looking at this like a lieutenant instead of an HQ staffer, which is unusual of you. You are saying, 1-2% simpler and better, no biggie, why work so hard to get it? And we are saying, 1-2% simpler and better, times thousands of applications, wow! That's a lot! Yes, changing cat to use openat() is no big deal. 1-2% additional coding cost for cat, who cares? But if you add 1-2% coding cost to every application which might access an attribute/stream/whatever, well, that totals more than the effort of authoring emacs. Can you see that? Namespace simplifications and empowerments are force multipliers. They don't add to Linux like writing a new app adds to Linux, they add to Linux like adding percentage improvements to every app in Linux adds to Linux. HQ staffer types know that if you collect enough itty bitty little force multipliers, you win the war. Whether the troops have to spend five minutes a day polishing their shoes because their type of shoe needs polishing, that matters more than losing a tank battalion, when you are a major power. Linux is a major power. This is a software engineering issue. We are discussing improvements that because they are diffused throughout the OS in their impact, seem like no big deal. But they are a big deal. One of the major determinants of an organization's efficiency is whether the management can recognize widely diffused inefficiencies as well as it can recognize focused inefficiencies of the same magnitude. David is so very right about the usability issues. Usability is all about trivia. Usability battles feature no dragons, they feature armies of spiders. If you add one step to what a user needs to do to get to the data with an app, that matters a lot. That's doubling the spider army. Making a 2 step process to access data into a one step process to access the data halves the time cost of accessing the data. Lifestyle efficiency is mostly about reducing the cost of trivia, because trivia is most of what we do. Most people have as much interest in reading the man page for tar as you have in learning how to turn the hand crank to start your car. Just the look of "tar -xf" turns them away. Crypto-Geek gobbledy-gook is what it is. Let's value their time, there are a lot of them. Hans David Masover wrote: > > > It's not about the kernel, it's about the interface. And see my other > mail: > cat foo.zip/README > less foo.zip/contents/bar.c > is a lot easier than > lynx http://google.com/search?q=zip > emerge zip > man zip > unzip foo.zip > cat bar.c > which already assumes quite a lot of expertise. > >