[squeak-dev] FileSystem (was: About (backwards) Compatibility)

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Thu Dec 13 06:13:07 UTC 2012


On 12-12-2012, at 6:59 PM, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  I just think its worth asking, though,
> whether a "core" system should provide that rich a model
> out-of-the-box or instead just a bland, one-layer-above-the-primitives
> lightweight model ready to be easily wrapped by the user's _own_ rich
> model of a FileSystem. 

My experience suggests that the smart approach is to build a core system that has the parts of the rich model that are needed to support the stuff you want in the core
and to make sure that the rest can be easily and non-destructively added as part of building up the system. That both allows and discourages the roll-your-own-in-a-hurry; which seems a good compromise between encouraging smart re-use of available code and allowing the truly nuts to invent something even better on the odd occasions they don't utterly crater.

There *should* be a way to provide a compatibility layer of fake-FileDirectory nastiness over the top of a nice FileSystem. It really is about time a good clean design got to have a chance; there's been way too much crapulence in FileDirectory over the decades. I should know - I wrote a fairly large part of it, several times in fact, and always because nobody wanted to make a change to a good system.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Death to all fanatics!




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