file attributes

[Erik M. van der Poel]

> >But does SCO's product allow you to click on the icon that represents
> >the 1/4 inch cartridge tape drive, to automatically select tar or cpio
> >(or whatever) for reading the tape?
> 
> 	You're joking, I assume! How dare you even assume I *WANT* to
> read the tape?

Well, if I tell the computer to read the tape into disk, it had better
do just that. If it warns me beforehand that there is not enough disk
space for this tape, then I'd be even happier. And if it can warn me
before overwriting existing files, that's also good.

Remember: Computers are our tools, not our masters.


> 	I second Chris Siebenmann's suggestion that people read Pike's
> paper on "help" in the latest USENIX.

I just read the first and last parts of Rob's paper. Excellent paper,
as always.

But this discussion is rapidly turning into one about user interfaces.
This was not my intention. I am proposing the addition of metadata to
any series of bits (floppies, network messages, etc). This metadata
should be written according to a standard, that applies across the
whole information technology industry. The end-users have had more
than enough of the incompatible proprietary stuff.

The reason I brought this up in comp.unix.wizards, is because I want
to discuss how we could integrate this metadata idea into Unix.
-
-- 
Erik M. van der Poel                                      erik at sra.co.jp
Software Research Associates, Inc., Tokyo, Japan     TEL +81-3-3234-2692