[Vm-dev] making a unix release package

[David T. Lewis]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 12:39:05AM +0200, Igor Stasenko wrote:
>  
> On 28 June 2013 21:52, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 28-06-2013, at 5:07 AM, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Here is a crude but effective recipe:
> >
> >
> > Thanks Dave. I'll give that a go.
> >
> > It never ceases to amaze how insanely complicated unix makes everything.
> >
> Amen, brother.
> 

<OT>
I understand what you are saying, but ... I think that the only part of my
recipe that had anything to do with Unix is the notion of mapping "files"
into a tree-structured directory with a single root at "/". That hardly
strikes me as being insanely complicated. In fact it is a great simplification
compared to the other bodged-up and overcomplicated arrangements found in
other operating systems over the years. Of course an even greater simplification
might be to not use the file metaphor at all, but if you do insist on using
files, it's hard to imagine a more conceptually simple representation than
the one provided by Unix.

Having said that, Smalltalk is the only environment I can think of that does
not inherently insist on represent things as "files" ... so what do people
spend their time on in Smalltalk? Griping about how well or poorly the image
maps to the various insanely complicated, inconsistently implemented, and
conceptually archaic "file system" metaphors used by their favorite operating
system platforms. Go figure.
</OT>

Dave