Re: Things that Longhorn seems to be doing right

Hans Reiser
2003-10-30T09:55:29Z

Giuliano Pochini wrote:

>On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Hans Reiser wrote:
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>>>We can do this simply by associating UUID's to files, and storing the
>>>the file metadata in a MySQL database which can be searched via
>>>appropriate userspace libraries which we provide.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>What a performance nightmare. Updating a user space database every time
>>a file changes --- let's move to a micro-kernel architecture for all of
>>the kernel the same day.....;-)
>>
>>
>
>If applications do not cooperate explicitly, there is no other way than
>scanning the files after they have been modified. Sure, it's slow, but
>there is no need to do the work immediately. Take into account the MS's
>goal is to make the system seem fast to the normal (desktop) user. I
>guess that system is aimed to speedup searches in word and text files,
>not in the whole filesystem. And the normal desktop user do write files
>only sometimes, so performance isn't a problem (unless you're copying a
>whole CD of word files into the HD). I think that intercepting
>open,write,close is enough to provide the same functionality in Linux.
>
>
>--
>Giuliano.
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>
I was not very articulate here. I agree that automatic text indexing
should be done with a lag in batches for performance reasons, rather
than in the BeFS style. I also think that it should not be done for all
files, that the user should have control over what he runs the indexer
on, and what indexer he likes to run, and what settings it uses, etc.
In particular, the user should be free to index by hand.

All that said, the indexes themselves should just be feature enhanced
directories accessed via the kernel. Feature enhancements might include
such things as better space efficiency, ordering plugins, etc.

--
Hans