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1.3 Advantages of My Solution

The advantages of a file system compiler are:

1.
It should be easier to implement a file system in FiST than in C.

2.
FiST adapts to the existing vnode definitions, so a single FiST program can be compiled to run on different operating systems that may have different vnode definitions.

3.
No kernel sources (usually proprietary and expensive) are required, meaning that anyone, not just operating system vendors, can become a file system implementer. Eliminating the need for kernel code also saves time spent on browsing and modifying, and licensing costs for each file system and platform.

4.
The same FiST program can be used to generate kernel-resident or user-level modules. User-level file systems are useful during development, as they are much easier to debug. Kernel-level file systems provide the best performance.

I expect that FiST will substantially increase the ease and speed with which researchers can prototype new file system ideas, thereby leading to a qualitative improvement in file system innovation.


next up previous contents
Next: 1.4 Organization of this Up: 1. Introduction Previous: 1.2 My Solution
Erez Zadok
1999-12-07