[ILUG] Longhorn

[Justin Mason]

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Niall Walsh writes:
> A second point, WinFS (which I presume this is talking about) just makes 
> me laugh every time I hear about it.  I remember back in 1995/6 reading 
> about Detroit/NT4 and how it would revolutionise computing with it's 
> database backed filesystem.   10 years later MS are still talking up the 
> same features which are still slipping from releases (I thought WinFS 
> was gone from Longhorn, or at least from the initial release).  I 
> haven't managed to pull up any links from a quick googling, and the 
> wayback machine doesn't go back far enough.  Anyone have any links?  I'd 
> love a good laugh at reading some of that old material (and see what 
> else still hasn't made it and is on the agenda).

Happy to oblige! ;)

It was called the "Cairo Object File System".   In those days, OODBs,
database-backed filesystems (due to pressure from Taligent iirc), and
distributed objects were all the rage, so the feature list for Cairo kept
getting those kinds of features added.  see:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77333&cid=6878850
http://www.byte.com/art/9511/sec6/art14.htm

It never happened.  Tiny dribbles of those features made it into NT4,
but were effectively useless.

Various people are claiming that the problems with Cairo were that the
machines of the day couldn't cope with it -- personally, I think the
problem is that a filesystem isn't a good place for database queries, no
matter how much kool-aid is drunk.  But I'm prepared to wait for
Longtooth^Whorn to prove me wrong ;)

Ultimately, let's see what actually makes it into Longhorn eventually,
*then* talk about it.   MS has a long history of talking big and
delivering little on this kind of thing.

BTW this guy has some useful thoughts on the fate of WinFS:
http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2004/12/12/280171.aspx

- --j.
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