Hello, On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 01:55:39AM +0100, [email protected] wrote: > On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 08:30:29PM +0300, Sergiu Ivanov wrote: > > > I wonder whether it is reasonable to try FUSE to implement > > translators. > > I mentioned this as one possibility in my original HELL blog post: > > http://tri-ceps.blogspot.com/2005/09/welcome-to-hell.html
Ah, sure! I couldn't remember where I took this idea from. > However, I was a bit sceptical about that from the beginning; and with > the greater understanding I have now, I'm pretty sure that implementing > translators on top of FUSE isn't realistic. > > While offering a FUSE interface might be useful for interaction with > non-Hurd programs, the communication among the Hurdish components > requires a different interface I believe, that can directly map generic > Hurd RPCs and the distributed VFS concept. Yes, I do agree with this. The idea of translators on FUSE initially came on my mind as an attempt to attract people to the hurdish way of thinking, but I realize now that having a single simple translator ported to FUSE is insufficient. An important feature to the hurdish way of thinking as I see it is modularity, and talking about modularity in the context of one translator is, of course, meaningless, while trying to port a translator *infrastructure* will require implementing this ``different interface'' you are talking about. > > I've never been much into FUSE, but the Wikipedia article says that > > ``FUSE is particularly useful for writing virtual file systems'', > > which, AIUI, is precisely the matter of interest for most translators. > > (At least FUSE filesystems like GmailFS, WikipediaFS, archivemount > > sound a lot like actual translator names.) > > What surprises me is that although FUSE has been around for a couple of > years now, and many many Hurd-style FUSE modules are available by now > for all kinds of things, the idea of such virtual filesystems still > doesn't seem to have arrived in most people's minds... > > At a PostgreSQL presentation I saw earlier this year, one of the things > shown was a FUSE module giving access to the database objects. For me as > a Hurd developer this was the most normal thing in the world; but the > rest of the audience was completely amazed -- it seems the idea that > filesystems can be used like that never appeared to them before... Very sad to hear such things indeed :-( > Well, at least it's no wonder we were never able to sell the idea of > virtual filesystems in the Hurd -- considering that apparently the > concept is still not sellable now, although it's widely available in > Linux, including countless useful examples... :-( I think the problem is that the concept of a virtual filesystem does not pass the ``What do I need this for?'' barrier in the minds of the majority. Unfourtunately, many people would just consider an xmlfs translator useless once they have a fancy (graphical, of course) XML editor. When having problems, they would ask on forums and, although the solution they be suggested may employ the concept of a virtual filesystem, they won't normally tire themselves with understanding what they did. Regards, scolobb
