if you are implementing a file-system metaphor within your program, that's when you should just step back and use 9P instead
or hecc, just use the basic file system of your OS
@grainloom but it isn't a file system metaphor... it's a (strange) real-world metaphor, where you have a folder containing references to books. like, a piece of paper saying "a great book: page 101, line 25". and some colorful stickers attached for it to be easily found, tags. or real tags if you want.
@leip4Ier
you could combine a directory tree of files that just contain a link with a synthetic file system like TagFS
@leip4Ier
that way you don't need dedicated database clients and can just use standard fs tools
@grainloom an average user will never make use of it being a file tree.
dbs are waay faster, so you anyway would need to keep the whole tree in ram (remember about autocomplete and search). and if you want to be able to externally edit it on-the-fly, you will need to set up inotify (remember about limits?).
@leip4Ier
you can back a file system with a DB, that's exactly what TagFS does
and you can serve the fs server from the browser process and get notified of everything
@leip4Ier
I think it's quite accessible compared to a desktop Linux. If you've ever had to configure something like Xorg.... well, you don't have such problems on Plan 9.
A lot of the complexity actually comes from not having per-process namespaces and user-level overlay mounts. Eg.: /bin /usr/bin /usr/local/bin and co. They can all be replaced by a single overlay mount. No more $PATH. That is one less thing you have to learn.
@leip4Ier
It's a very different OS for sure, but it has fewer concepts. Way fewer.
So I think it's quite accessible overall.
@grainloom does it have fewer concepts because they're so great or because just nobody applied plan9 to real-world problems? i mean a user desktop with graphics, browsers, etc.
@grainloom by 'accessible' i meant as a file, would be nice to have a system like you've described, but nobody needed that so no implementation yet.
well, you don't have such problems because it reads your mind and configures itself or because you just can't do things you can in xorg? i never configured xorg before i needed a custom keyboard layout, so...
and no, i don't want to throw every executable into a single dir, i like $PATH approach.
@grainloom i like the model in theory, it's beautiful. but how fast is it in real-world applications? i guess not very.
like... i see the point is that everything should be accessible as a file, not that everything should physically be a file.
would be nice if it was accessible, but nobody really needed that before so nobody implemented that.