On Tuesday 24 November 2009 10:39:24 am Andreas Raab wrote:
> Yes, portable access is good, but one of the things that I'm wary about 
> is that you may end up with code which claims to support URIs when 
> really it only supports files. The difference being that a file is a 
> local resource and as a consequence the type and frequency of failures, 
> latency and bandwidth are vastly different from that of a remote resource.
"file" has two meanings as used in this discussion - a stream protocol or a 
locator for a physical file. In Squeak, file i/o is more of a protocol between 
the VM and the image than a store (i.e. does not care where or how it is 
stored on the host). FilePlugin is a good place to hide pathname ugliness.

URI is just one option for a such a protocol. Plan 9 uses a simpler design 
that would suit traditional file stores (see http://plan9.bell-
labs.com/sys/doc/names.html).

Colin's design is clean and functional for his purposes. It has some gaps that 
need to be filled before it can be adopted as another protocol in Squeak. The 
paper above covers some of the protocol gaps (rename, links, hidden/temporary 
attributes, copy on write, mounts, devices like serial ports).

Subbu