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Date:      Fri, 25 May 2001 20:49:21 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: technical comparison
Message-ID:  <200105252049.NAA13292@usr06.primenet.com>

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] It's got nothing to do with the basics of software engineering or
] computer science.  It's got to do with interface definitions and
] APIs.
] 
] Where in open(1) does it specify a limit on the number of files
] permissible in a directory?  The closest that it comes, that I can
] see is:

[ ... ]

] All of which quite clearly indicate that if one wants to put all
] of ones allocation of blocks or inodes into a single directory,
] then one can, as long as the name and path length limits are
] observed.

"UNIX, in not preventing you from doing stupid things, permits
you to do clever things which other operatings systems do not
permit.".

I maintain that just because you are not administratively
prohibited from doing stupid things, that in no way makes
doing those things less stupid.


] You're welcome to claim a documentation bug, and add the
] appropriate caveat.  It seems clear to me that Hans Reiser (and
] Silicon Graphics before him) have taken the more obvious approach,
] of attempting to remove the performance limitation inherent in the
] existing implementation.

The "performance limitation"?

Get your story straight: is there a limitation, or isn't there?


] You can moan about tree-structured vs relational databases, but if
] your problem space doesn't intrinsically map to a tree, then it
] doesn't stop the tree-structring transformation that Terry
] mentioned from being a gratuitious hack to work around a
] performance problem with the existing implementation.


It is not a "performance problem with the existing implementation",
it is "pilot error".

There is _no_ performance problem with "the existing implementation",
if you treat "postgres" as "the existing implementation"; it will do
what you want, quickly and effectively, for millions of record keys.

Why are you treating an FS as if it were a relational database?  It
is a tool intended to solve an entirely different problem set.

You are bitching about your hammer not making a good screwdriver.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.

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