Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!kre@seismo.CSS.GOV@munnari.UUCP
From: kre@seismo.CSS.GOV@munnari.UUCP (Robert Elz)
Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  Need information on NFS
Message-ID: <8612250637.AA05517@seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Thu, 25-Dec-86 17:26:30 EST
Article-I.D.: seismo.8612250637.AA05517
Posted: Thu Dec 25 17:26:30 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Dec-86 18:41:50 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 49
Approved: tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa

In <861224142645.6.SNED@MEADOWLARK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
sned@PEGASUS.SCRC.Symbolics.COM wrote a lot of nonsense,
followed by one seemingly correct statement...

> [I know my share about UN*X, too].

I'd say that's right - divide all knowledge about Unix by however
many billions of people there are on this planet, and you learned
the bit about how to spell it without violating the trade mark.

> As I see it, the problem is really the lack
> of support for anything but UN*X filesystem syntax in UN*X.  

Since Unix filename syntax is a sequence of chars terminated
by a null (some systems have a maximum length, generally not
less than about 1024 bytes), its hard to see how this is much
of a problem.

> By the way, it's interesting that Lisp Machines, which were designed
> from the beginning to be used as workstations on a network, adopted the
> pathname syntax of host:string-for-host for 'open'.  UN*X, which was
> designed as a self-contained system, has to indirectly chop a local
> pathname, in UN*X pathname syntax, into host and string-for-host via
> Special Files and Mount Tables.

What a load of rubbish.  There have been mny RFS's for Unix at various
times.  Many early ones adopted some form of "host:string" syntax
for remote file names, they ALL died (or have been forgotten), because
that's a REVOLTING method for naming remote files.  That means that
someone has to know that the files is remote to build that filename,
and what's worse has to know which host the file lives on.

Unix implementations don't use mount tables, etc, because that's the only
way it can be done, or even because its the easiest way it can be done.
Just the opposite, its MUCH easier on unix to implement a "host:string"
syntax - an average unix kernel programmer could do one of those (clients)
(given existing network code) in an easy afternoon.   The mount table
mechanism is used because it gives the right semantics - host names aren't
built as a part of the syntax of a filename, they're derived by a level of
indirection that makes it easy to alter the configuration (you can move
local files to a remote host without having to change any uses of the
filenames at all).

I'm not going to comment on Lisp machines, as I've never used one.
From all reports they have a lot of nice attributes, but if Symbolics
standard of employees is confined to "we're right, nothing else comes
close" parrots then I don't have much hope for their continued success.

Robert Elz			kre%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov