WinFS' Spot on Back Burner Nothing New

osViews.com writes "Charles Arthur of Independant.co.uk has an interesting editorial which analyzes Microsoft's recently postponed 'WinFS,' the file system that Microsoft had been planning to implement in Longhorn. His editorial reminds us that this technology, previously referred to as the 'NT Object Filing System' was intended for a previous version of one of Microsoft's operating system's code named 'Cairo.' Microsoft first spoke of the 'NT Object Filing System' in 1992 and scheduled a beta release in 1996 and then a full release in 1997. But limitations cause it to continue being delayed."

Comments

maybe because WinFS...

[bani]

...is a solution in search of a problem?

Re:maybe because WinFS...

[vadim_t]

Of course they can be improved. It's just that WinFS might not be the right way of doing it.

WinFS and similar approaches seem to take the view of that directories are horribly complicated, so users have to be able to search for information to find it anywhere. Find a document from Joe, and so on.

Now, the problem with that is to do interesting searches such as "reports from joe" you need some kind of metadata that specifies the file's a report, and that it comes from Joe.

If we do this WinFS thing assuming users can't keep a good directory structure, why would they specify the correct metadata? After all, somebody has to mark it as a report. I know from experience that trying to make my mother type a decent filename is a problem.

Examples: She will write a document, and save it with a name like "letter", "invitation" or "invoice". Then later she'll open it, use it as a pattern for a different invoice, and save it back with the same name. In the best case, she'll call it invoice2. She will also keep two completely separate invoices in one document, one page for each.

So, would she even bother to provide some consistent information when asked to specify a subject, a person, keywords and stuff like that? I'm completely sure that no.

Re:maybe because WinFS...

[IntlHarvester]

Well, there's also the other organizational issue that *I* can maintain a perfectly good directory layout, but *you* may not have the slightest clue how it organized.

You can see this problem on any corporate network where the users have 10 shared drives, each with hundreds of subdirectories, and most of them don't have a clue whats out there.

In otherwords, some of the best metadata for searching would be folder structure. Problem is that most search tools don't understand "Q:\Reports\Joe\" in the same way humans do. I don't know how this helps your mother.

Re:maybe because WinFS...

[SvendTofte]

The concept of storing files, much like how we do in filing cabinets is cute, but old fashioned. Abstracting the file system, such as into a DB, would allow any view on the data (files) stored, that you may desire. The directory concept is good, but possibly there may be other views, more advantagous at different times.

Such as ... well, your music collection. Why be forced to sort it (assuming you do, I do) in one way. You could present multiple views of the music data, one totally flat, one by albums, one by genrer, and so on.

We already see all of this in many different types of apps. Either music managers, or disk information viewers, showing space taken up by this or that file.

We're seeing this in email clients too. Opera's M2 (which sucks otherwise) does a great job of this. Gmail does it too now, though not as well (IMO).

At least, assuming this WinFS is what it sounds like.

Re:maybe because WinFS...

[B5_geek]

I am not trying to troll, but it may end up sounding like it...

I disagree with your initial statement that storeing your files in nested directories is 'cute'.

It is a logical hierarchical structure that allows for easy sorting & finding of documents **If they are stored in any type of sane manner**.

iTunes is an excellent example of this. *(disclaimer: if all your ID3 tags are complete & accurate)*
iTunes allows you to search, play, and arrange your music very quickly.

This is perfect if your existing collection was not organized.

WinFS will be perfect for the millions of people who just dump every document that they come across into "My Documents". I work with a dozen of these idiots. The only way that they can "open" a file, is by opening word, clicking the open icon, and looking in the default location among the hundreds of files that they already have there.

Gnome's Spatial file/window system reminds me of the same concept.

Those people who already have their files well structured will only be annoyed at having to jump through the hoops that MS has placed before them. I don't want to have to work just to get at my files. Didn't MS try this already (in a very limited fasion) with the whole: "My Music", "My Photos", "my Downloads", My Gawd! Where are the files actually located?

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\more!

I much rather prefer:
c:\docs
c:\mp3
c:\pics
d:\download

etc....

By dumping everything into one directory, you make it impossible to easily find what you want, but your answer is: Just search it!

Why would I search it, if in 3 mouse-clicks I could find it the old-fasioned way.

MS strategy (I think) is to make using the compupter less like work (like it is for my above quoted co-workers), and less intimidating, but they do this at the risk of completely annoying it's existing 'power-user' base.

If MS could do it in a fasion that is 100% behind the scenes from the user, then they might have an idea. index all documents, songs (lyrics too), movies (scripts), _EVERYTHING_. Then IF you need to search, then the whole thing is at your fingertips.

I look forward to any opposing thought that you may have on this. I realise that I just might be a carmudgen old-fart who is stuck in his ways and afraid of change.

Who here remembers...

[callipygian-showsyst]

Who here remembers COPELAND, Pink, and Taligent?

Or for that matter the ORIGINAL goal of the Gnu project?

What's your point here? Why are you trying to bash Microsoft just because they decided to delay or abandon something?

Re:Who here remembers...

[SEE]

Well, COPELAND, Pink, and Taligent were actually killed, not merely indefinitely delayed, and none of them managed to last more than ten years as projects. And the "ORIGINAL goal" of the Gnu project was actually achieved, albeit only with the help of an independent group under Linus Torvalds writing the kernel.

The NT Object Filing System/WinFS, on the other hand, is now 12 years old, but Microsoft is still promising it's coming -- in a few years. Call me crazy, but I think twenty years is a pretty damn long product development cycle.

Of course its on the backburner

[agent dero]

To how many of Mircrosoft's MILLIONS of consumers, is a filesystem like 'WinFS' (theoretically) a feature to be desired?

Most people I know want eye candy, and things to work as they're used too.

Microsoft doesn't _need_ WinFS, therefore it's not a prime concern

A Delay for a Solution in Search of a Problem? So?

[wernst]

Of ALL the various computer problems I need to take care of for my clients on a daily basis, their ability to locate their "lost" files is NOT one of them.

Microsoft "solved" this problem for all intents and purposes by having every program save its files in the "My Documents" folder or a subfolder therein, and allowing for filenames that can be long and have spaces.

Sometimes I feel like Microsoft is rearranging the deck chairs while the ship is sinking. Anyone remember that cool "Tripping the Rift" movie? The ship is falling to pieces and the onboard repair robot repaired the machine that makes ice cubes first. The outraged captain smacked it with wrench and screamed "We're floating in space you decide to fix the stupid ice machine? Get to work on the fucking hyperdrive!!!"

Microsoft need a similar push.

Re:Or maybe...

[vadim_t]

There's a system that exists already and that's not vaporware. ReiserFS 4.

You can "cd" into a file like a directory and see the metadata. Things like bitrate for MP3, and all that stuff.

SQL doesn't fit that well with filesystems, btw. Relational databases work great with rigid categories. But beyond very rudimentary classification it won't work well because everybody has their own idea of what a good classification should look like.

Re:maybe because WinFS is vapor...

[msobkow]

Glomming two related services into one blob of unmaintainable code is not necessarily a benefit. A database mapping has the advantage of being able to catalog distributed file systems, including those which don't have any object tag extensions.

The other problem is that it's not uncommon in the database world to spend far more disk indexing complex data for access than it actually takes to store the raw information itself. Do you really want the possibility that your inseperable all-in-one file system is using more space for the equivalent of directory entries than for data itself?

Remember this isn't about special cases like a user too lazy to sort their home directory or documents folder, but applying that overhead to the entire system. With all the tweaks people do to improve general FS performance and reliability, why would anyone think adding overhead is a good idea unless you need, and I mean need those features?

If you do indeed need those features so badly, why not just buy or use one of dozens of existing document storage and search facilities?

WinFS was just trying to find a way to make people think the two ideas were inextricably bound together and in some way unique to Windows. In truth that honour goes to hundreds of document database and repository products and the long-toothed AS400 (or so my cohorts tell me that work on the platform.)

Re:Or maybe...

[IntlHarvester]

Right now, Reiser hasn't even conviced Linus and Viro to include Reiser4 into the stock kernel. Much less convince KDE/Gnome/Mozila/OpenOffice/etc/etc/etc to adapt their stuff to his interfaces. So, no, I don't think he's in the same position as Microsoft (who can coordinate this across the OS, the shell, and in many applicaitons at once) at all.