I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it seems like a good fit. What better forum for deep thought on the meaning of files and directories than the Plan 9 news group?
There would be great utility in merging files and directories into a composite content/container object that respond 'read' and 'write' for file ops and 'list', 'add', 'delete' for directory ops. For example, a disk drive could respond to 'read' with a bunch of stuff on the disk, and respond to 'list' with a listing of it's hardware settings, which could be set with a 'write'. Merged file/directories also make a lot of sense when you think about languages with hierarchical modules -- instead of having naming conventions to find a sub-module, you just look it up and read it. Similarly, hierarchical documents map straight on to the mixed file/folder -- you put the intro in the head and its components under the head. I'm sure this idea has come up in the past; many of my ideas are like that. The 'everything is a file' model is proverbial, but it was not so once upon a time. I'm sure the 'everything is a directory' model had its proponents in days gone by, just as functional languages did (and will again!). In fact, 'everything is a directory' is the man behind the curtain in LDAP. In the considered opinion of the list, is "everything is a directory" a big mess, a resource wasting fantasy, an idea whose time has come?
