
A Dream of an Ultimate OS (1995) - tosh
http://okmij.org/ftp/papers/DreamOSPaper.html
======
PaulHoule
Mainframe operating systems have had a database integrated in the OS for a
long time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Storage_Access_Method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Storage_Access_Method)

A VSAM table is like one table of a SQLLite database but it done in the OS
rather than userspace.

I also believe that the 'CATALOG' that indexes all of the files on a
filesystem is itself a VSAM table that works a lot like the master file table
on NTFS.

So far as embedding folders and other files in a document, the foundation is
already there. Microsoft Office documents are already ZIP files that contain
XML files for the primary content and have embedded images and other media
files.

Also from the Microsoft world, the Registry is a configuration database built
in to the OS which works better than text files if you have a GUI for
configuration.

~~~
dredmorbius
Microsoft's Registry is also realised as a filesystem tree (/registry) under
Cygwin, allowing traversal, viewing, and modification via shell tools.

Compare /proc and /sys on Linux.

------
ktpsns
The fun thing about software dreams is that theoretically nothing prevents one
to implement them. People coded OSes (or sometimes only GUIs/Shells, or only
filesystems) which radically implemented their heroic concepts, which is
frequently "everything is an X", where X could be a file, a database (item),
something visual, an object (as in OOP), etc.

I love these concepts. And I love when they get popular, such as Plan9. I also
like when they get successful, such as Mac OS classic. But what I don't get is
_demanding_ that everybody should use that OS. There are reasons why concepts
are successful or fail. Frequently, they are based on economics, i.e.
ultimately: money.

Concluding: Guys, please continue to dream of what an "ultimate" or "perfect"
computer experience would be for you. Tell the world about it. Implement it if
you can. It makes a difference, even if it's only around interested peers.

