File system software???

[Joe Armstrong]

> I'm left wondering what on earth you want to do which 
> 
>   - you can't do in the normal filesystem, using normal files
> 
>   - requires you to generate an ordinary filesystem, i.e. not something
>     portable like a tarfile or a pkzip archive
> 
  Just hide all the details from the user.

  The otp bases system is several thousand files - If I want to
distribute an application in Erlang I hate having to send out all these files.

   Jacob Nielsen makes this point in

   http://www.useit.com/papers/filedeath.html


  I have reduced this number to 4 (next release of stand-alone Erlang)
but  do not  have  a convenient  way  of hiding  all the  dynamically
generated files that an application might use, hence the interest.

  Since  only my  application will  use  the virtual  file system  the
format is irrelevant - in the same sense that I don't care if my files
are stored in an ext2 or ext3 file system. There is also an advantage in
not being a zip container etc. I makes it difficult for other people to mess
around with the files though an uncontrolled interface.

  /Joe