Files as files

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Thu Jun 11 22:08:06 1998

On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Max Eskin wrote:

> OK, I never got this "object" stuff, it's kinda confusing because it
> tends to make much ado about nothing.

Everybody agrees that computers are made up of two kinds of stuff: code
and data. The procedure-heads say "keep the two separate, and the code is
the main thing." The object-heads say "the two are tightly coupled, and
let the data be the focus."

When you deal with a traditional filesystem, it's kind of up to you to
figure out what the data is and what application it was meant to be used
with. Sometimes you guess wrong, and try to "type" binary data, for
example.

Object stores "know" the application(s) associated with data, and
generally allow you to apply a consistent set of operations to that data.
For example, if you say "print that object", the system will automagically
invoke the code that knows how to print that data, no matter what the
internal format happens to be. It's one less thing for you to have to
remember (and one more thing Microsoft can screw-up).

-- Doug
Received on Thu Jun 11 1998 - 22:08:06 BST