(was slashes, now NFS devices)

[Dan Bernstein]

In article <1991Mar11.001343.15630 at Think.COM> barmar at think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
> In article <1991Mar9.170841.4042 at panix.uucp> zink at panix.uucp (David Zink) writes:
> >P.S.  If NFS need hold no state on the server, what is a .nfsXXX file?
> >"I know, I know, it's not part of the protocol."
> It's state maintained *by the client* in the server's file system.

See, this is just an implementation technique. When people complained
that unlink() failed over NFS, this supposed ``statelessness'' didn't
stop Sun from (partially) fixing the bug. Similarly for any other bit of
filesystem semantics.

I don't mind people pointing out that inside NFS the client keeps some
of the filesystem state; that's a perfectly fine implementation
strategy, and it's easier to start with such an implementation if you
want reliability through crashes. I do mind people who look at this
``statelessness'' and use it as an excuse for incorrect semantics.

---Dan
A stateless filesystem is a useless filesystem.