> Ze'ev wrote: > You basically say "System System on the wall, > please bring me my file" and automagically, your > file appears! (even if it was stored on a third > level storage). You basically cannot implement that in Unix.
This is totally possible and easy to create using a virtual file system. I never said you can't do many of the things we do in MVS. I said most people are not willing to do these things properly in the Unix land of the free. The programming is the least of the problems. To build an integrated solution, the developer has the massive task of coordination with groups that are very bureaucratic. At what point will the developer give in and create according to the norm instead of how it really should be. "portability" is a joke. If you want to make an integrated system product, forget about it. There aren't many system exits. Asking for a system change (kernel) is nearly impossible because there is several *nix groups (e.g. linux, unix, solaris, MVS USS and more). You most likely will need some agreement with other product groups that are supposed to integrate with your product. It only takes disagreement in one of these groups and you start all over again. This is too daunting. Eventually, you come up with some half acceptable solution otherwise you get stuck in a never ending loop. MVS is littered with useful exit points. Something as simple as security is a common exit point. Look a webserver and you will see they have different security implementations. Most Unix systems are open source and you can add what you want. Exits are a much better idea even when they can't cover every possible problem. Fortunately Unix is a very light weight OS (e.g. file handling). Portability is for application programmers. While C programmers will say they built system programs (e.g. system utilities - grep, regexp), the reality is it's a glorified application. Application programming is fine because you don't need to rely on approvals and concensus. Regards, Jon.
