Re: Database storage approach (2)

[Xun Cheng <xun cs ucsb edu>]

I guess what really hides deeply in our concern is that
today file system seems to be the only way you can make
some data (objects) in your program persistent. Whenever
you want to save something, you open a file, put a stream
in it. However it could be a burden or inconvenient sometime.
And using a DBMS is another way of saving data. But the
seemingly complexity of using a DBMS terrifies many 
people. I wouldn't recommend replacing a file system
with a DBMS. Instead we can introduce persistence into
OS directly. Let's say I have a variable in memory.
Whether they are transient or persistent is irelevant to
how you manipulate them. The persistence of a variable
is just another attribute of a variable just like its type and
should be changable. What I mentioned is actually like
a persistent programming language like ObjectStore. But it's
not in OS and transparent to programmers.

xun