Re: buffer cache & ufs changes (preliminary ffsv2 extattr support)

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> I'm working on porting the FreeBSD FFSv2 extended attributes support.
> [...]

> 1) Add a new bflag, B_ALTDATA.  [...]
> 2) instead of using a new flag, add a new 'int type' member [...]

> Althrough I've done 1 as a POC, I prefer solution 2 ([...]).  What do
> other think ?

As a choice of approach to implementing what you want, I think 2 is
better.  It's far more generalizable.  As a piece of SF I read once
said, "the number two is ridiculous and can't possibly exist".  It was
talking about universes, but the basic concept applies here too:
there's very little excuse for any number between "one" and "many".

However, I think that constitutes a good implementation of a bad idea.
This makes a file no longer a long list of octets; it becomes multiple
long lists of octets.  The Mac did this, with resource forks and data
forks, and you may note OS X doesn't do it any longer.  I suspect these
will seem like a good idea for a while, until people start discovering
all the things they break, or that break them, and realize that they
didn't learn from history and thus had to repeat it.

That said, it's no skin off my nose.  I've said my piece, and it won't
be affecting me, pragmatically, either way.

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