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1. Created Date, separate from ctime, that actually indicated the date that the file was first written, that would be saved across moves. HPFS had it, NTFS had it, allegedly ZFS will have it. This kind of goes with…
2. File Streams for metadata.Why? Because metadata doesn’t belong with the file, despite what my “Just use EXIF and id3!” ranting friend says. This boils down to the “Database versus Objects” filesystem debate where unix heads complain that if it’s not just a single stream of bytes, they don’t want to dick with it. I really don’t care what they think. Just because your 38-year-old ideas work for you doesn’t mean they make sense in a world where files are complex multi-format blocks of stuff which grow in number every day. Hell, you’ve managed to make ‘name’ ‘directory’ ‘mtime’ ‘atime’ ‘owner’ ‘group’ ‘permissions’ work for you, despite their not being part of your precious stream of bytes. There needs to be a standard for things like ‘author’ ’summary’ ‘keywords’ ‘icon’ ‘type’. Yes. I’m a firm believer in the Mac-That-Was. Doesn’t mean I’m not right. Things like Spotlight and Beagle and, um, WinFS or whatever, they’re just shims. Hell, they’re basically duplicating metadata based on the bag of bytes. We need a standard, people. Jeebus!
3. SATA Hotplug. I don’t care if it doesn’t work for old ATAPI or old “pseudo SATA” devices. Just make a framework so drivers can register that they provide hotplug to devices, and which devices might be hotpluggable. Christ. I don’t want a pony. I just want to be able to swap out my backup drive in my server, and you freaks can make it work for USB. Chop chop!
4. Samba 4 already. To go with my hot-hot-hot file streams.
5. A filesystem like ZFS that does automatic in-system integrity checking. Copy-on-write is fucking brilliant. I know, I know, “it makes things slower!”. “Why not just use Windows?” …why not indeed. Actually, this brings up the simple question of “Why not use Solaris 10?” …well, when the community edition comes out with the ZFS revision, I do think I shall.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 at 11:40 am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.