A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#1

Post by animalcule » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)
okmij.org

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#2

Post by ridaj » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:23 AM UTC

At "ultimate", I thought the author was going to aim for consciousness... But what, databases?!

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#3

Post by themodelplumber » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

Those would be really cool improvements to see. And, in my experience, wise are those who have already built personal tooling to get some of this level of convenience functionality working for them. I'm still blown away by what can be accomplished by system scripts or simple apps _just_ in the realm of personal productivity.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#4

Post by blablabla123 » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:41 AM UTC

ridaj wrote: post #2

At "ultimate", I thought the author was going to aim for consciousness... But what, databases?!

Actually Microsoft tried this idea themselves with WinFS. It was planned for Vista but eventually the project was stopped because it was too much effort. I could imagine this to be really useful if it was possible to add arbitrary custom attributes.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#5

Post by throwaway8941 » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:45 AM UTC

(1995)

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#6

Post by leoc » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

Old comments on an old post about basically the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542595

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#7

Post by echelon » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:02 AM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #4

ridaj wrote: post #2

At "ultimate", I thought the author was going to aim for consciousness... But what, databases?!

Actually Microsoft tried this idea themselves with WinFS. It was planned for Vista but eventually the project was stopped because it was too much effort. I could imagine this to be really useful if it was possible to add arbitrary custom attributes.

Does anyone have the story on why this project was actually halted? It reportedly sounded like it would have been a giant leap at the time, had it actually landed.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#8

Post by mirimir » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

> But it does not have to be this way. If a database engine is implemented as a core system service, along with simple tools to browse and modify database records, the gordian knot of system configuration files disappears. MacOS comes very close to this ideal, with ResEdit as this universal database editor.

Or AS/400, which is more or less a SQL database.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#9

Post by krylon » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:07 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #7

blablabla123 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually Microsoft tried this idea themselves with WinFS. It was planned for Vista but eventually the project was stopped because it was too much effort. I could imagine this to be really useful if it was possible to add arbitrary custom attributes.

Does anyone have the story on why this project was actually halted? It reportedly sounded like it would have been a giant leap at the time, had it actually landed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1svf88/why_win...

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#10

Post by iso-8859-1 » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:10 AM UTC

krylon wrote: post #9

echelon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have the story on why this project was actually halted? It reportedly sounded like it would have been a giant leap at the time, had it actually landed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1svf88/why_win...

That discussion doesn't contain any high quality posts, why not link the actual article?

http://hal2020.com/2013/02/14/winfs-integratedunified-storag...