Flat file systems

In a flat file system, there are no subdirectories.

When floppy disk media was first available this type of file system was adequate due to the relatively small amount of data space available. CP/M machines featured a flat file system, where files could be assigned to one of 16 user areas and generic file operations narrowed to work on one instead of defaulting to work on all of them. These user areas were no more than special attributes associated with the files, that is, it was not necessary to define specific quota for each of these areas and files could be added to groups for as long as there was still free storage space on the disk. The Apple Macintosh also featured a flat file system, the Macintosh File System. It was unusual in that the file management program (Macintosh Finder) created the illusion of a partially hierarchical filing system on top of EMFS. This structure required every file to have a unique name, even if it appeared to be in a separate folder.

While simple, flat file systems become awkward as the number of files grows and makes it difficult to organize data into related groups of files.

a file system like this seems counterintuitive because you only save one bit/spot when saving data (name and file contents rather than id name and file contents)

flat filesystems are bullshit plan9 hipster scarf nerdlords are fucking trying to fucking make it a standard becuase its an obscure way of managing files -for good reason, becauz it sucks

flat filesystems are managed with 'tags' rather than being put into directories/folders, so instead of putting "love letter.doc" into "Documents" u tag it "Documents" its a really fucking dumb way to do things nerds think it makes life easier because then you can search "Documents" and get all your documents but if u make a typo on the tag? Glück Sonderling müssen Sie Wochen verbringen, um es zu finden. und ein Betriebssystem mit einem Flachbild-Dateisysteme wird nie passieren, weil Sie manuell markieren Sie alle Dateien, die das Betriebssystem und das ist in etwa so tragfähig wie den Bau der Burg Dubai von Hand gelegten Steine!!!

thinking into this it sounds literally harder to manage and program a flat file system because development relies on non shitty systems just as much as a user does

ozzie freedom wrote:thinking into this it sounds literally harder to manage and program a flat file system because development relies on non shitty systems just as much as a user does

yes because even booting needs to read and write to files and shit and it's so much easier to have everything organized into hierarchies, rather than memorizing a shitload of unique filenames