[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2012-08-23 17:46:00 +0000, Johnny Billquist said:

> So basically, what you are saying is that when using the file system 
> interfaces, a file (on disk or anywhere else) is a stream of bytes (in 
> Unix).
> I have no problem with that. It's just not the "lowest level of a 
> disk", nor can all I/O be done through the file system.


The purpose of an operating system, of a database or other record 
management system, and most other frameworks, is to abstract the 
lower-level interfaces.  An operating system is a bag of device 
drivers, and a selection of tools and abstractions.

A file system can be built upon, but is not necessarily dependent on 
sector-addressable hard disk storage systems.

The file system abstracts the disk storage.

Few folks want to deal with programming disk storage hardware directly, 
and (going forward) the baroque interfaces and constructs are 
undoubtedly and eventually headed for deprecation.  As non-solid-state 
rotating-rust storage dies (slowly), so too will the interfaces.  And 
I'd prefer to move that abstraction up further, and dispense with the 
hassles inherent in RMS-style interfaces.

Will some folks need sector-level access?  Sure.  Some folks still use 
assembler, or machine code directly, and not the higher-level languages 
and their abstractions.  But most have moved on from there.



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