Re: Alternative File API

On 8/18/09 11:08 PM, Nikunj R. Mehta wrote:
> Do we need asynchronous APIs if files are local and file system access
> is fast?
Files that you select from file system aren't necessarily local and
the system access can be very slow in some cases.
I use sshfs all the time to mount remote systems to local file system.
NFS is pretty common everywhere.

> If we do, then why do we not also need progress events? I don't
> quite follow your reasoning and classification of "desirable edge case".
> It seems that the whole WebApps WG has accepted the "desirable edge
> case" of dealing with system delays such as in SQL databases and file
> systems through the use of asynchronous APIs.
There are cases like (the example is about XHR) 
http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2009/06/reading-ogg-files-with-javascript.html
where one wants to load a huge file and process it while still loading
the file.

> Honestly, I don't like to use events for file access.
Why not? To me the difference between callbacks and events isn't that
big, but with events supporting progress events becomes possible.
(I wouldn't want to see different progress tracking for XHR and File 
reading).

-Olli

Received on Tuesday, 18 August 2009 21:40:03 UTC