[Info-vax] VSI roadmap

[David Jones]

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 8:05:25 PM UTC-4, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> Are there some details that could have been done 
> different and better? Absolutely! Having record 
> size limit of 2 GB (32 bit length) instead of 
> 32 KB (16 bit length) would have been nice. If VAR 
> files has length both as line header and line trailer, 
> then such a file could easily be read backwards. I am 
> sure that if Hein could travel back in time he could 
> have optimized caching a lot. But wanting to change 
> some implementation details 45 years later is 
> no unique for RMS. 
> 

I'm not sure that's true, given how slow hardware was 45 years ago. Adding
6 bytes of meta-data to a VAR file with an average record length of 30
characters will increase the size by 18%. More space on disk and more I/O
operations to process the file.