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Re: Niche for Hurd - discussion - the power of translators


From: olafBuddenhagen
Subject: Re: Niche for Hurd - discussion - the power of translators
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:48:07 +0100
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17)

Hi,

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 05:35:16PM +0100, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Mittwoch 29 Oktober 2008 12:16:58 schrieb olafBuddenhagen@gmx.net:

> > Well, regarding the specific examples, such things aren't very
> > interesting anymore: With FUSE, this can all be done on Linux as
> > well nowadays... It's much harder to find examples for unique
> > possibilities now.
> 
> That can be done with FUSE, if your kernel supports it. 

I'm sure FUSE is enabled by default in pretty much any recent
distribution.

> - A shared MMORPG game world consisting simply of files for levels and
> person descriptions with access rights. All synchronizing is done on
> the translator level. Programs only have to display the given files
> and quickly update the state of their own files, so the programs stay
> very easy. The translator could notify the program when something
> changes. 

This is actually exactly how I imagine a hurdish application structure
:-)

There is a problem though: People will immediately point out that it
could be done with FUSE as well, or even with a normal directory. (This
is not hypothetical -- it actually happened to me during a
presentation...) And then, how do you explain why translators still
matter here?...

The difference of course is that with a normal directory, or even with
FUSE, it's quite cumbersome, while with translators it's very natural
and elegant -- as in fact a better system design is *always* about
making things simpler and more elegant, rather than allowing things
absolutely not possible with other designs. But it's very hard to
convince people that "just" making things simpler is indeed worth it.

Which is a pity of course: making things simpler; lowering the entry
barriers; is extremely important -- it often makes the difference
between something being possible in theory, or the same thing actually
being done.

Anyways, just claiming that it can be done, doesn't help us. If we had a
bunch of applications actually following these ideas, so people can see
for themselfs, I'm sure it would be much more convincing...

-antrik-




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