Re: Will IBM ever expand system object names?

Here's a brand new thought that nobody has ever thought of before:

IBM could implement an alternative interface to accessing file systems.  In addition to supporting the old ones limited to 10 characters, it could support other ones too, like the ones we typically use on new-fangled inventions like Unix (hey, it's only 50 some years old) or Windows, etc.   Indeed, it could integrate support for all of these types of file systems, and even support "aliases" in the form of symbolic links so you could make long names that reference objects in other file systems.

Wouldn't that be cool?   Maybe IBM could call it something like the "Integrated File System".  People could call it "IFS" for short.

Gosh I hope I live to see the day!

But you're right... let's reinvent all of the string handling in all of the programming languages on the system and make everyone completely rewrite all of their programs.  That'd work much better.


On 5/29/2024 4:09 PM, Steve Richter wrote:

On Wed, May 29, 2024 at 3:26 PM Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Where would you store the relationship between the 10 char name the system
would have to create and the long name? Would you allow calling by the
short name? That would match the way SQL names work. Either way it slows
down calls.

Regarding the slowing down of calls, simply flip the switch that enables
all the power 10 cores to run ibm i workload.

Just to give a tiny example of the work needed. Think of all the APIs
that accept a 20ch compound name. How big are you going to make the new
names? 30? 40? They can't be arbitrary because such APIs have to split the
components. Unless you include a separator? Now you have extra logic to
test for its existence. Then there are edge cases such a 20 char field with
a five char library name and a 14 long object. even the length of the
field doesn't tell you how to process it.

"easy". Implement javascript like dynamic objects, strings and garbage
collection into the OS. Write new versions of the system APIs which
accept dynamic objects as parameters. Use AI and copilot to convert the
system APIs to the new version.

-Steve