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Re: Protected Page...

On Mon, 13 May 1996, Dana Hudes wrote:

> Directories do chew up disk space. It is not just the kbytes but 
> i-nodes (on unix) or FAT entries (on DOS). For small server this is fine 
> if you only have a few documents to server up. But for a big server with 
> undreds of documents you are making life more difficult. In addition, 
> many graphics are common to all or many pages so you keep them in a 
> /icons directory or something . 

It really depends on your content.  My content is typically graphics-rich,
and the relatively small amount of disk space "chewed" by directories is
almost irrelevant compared to that kind of content.  i-nodes don't eat
disk space, by the way, because they're already allocated (which is why
UNIX filesystems format to about 80% of the "free" space DOS or a Mac
reports), although they are another resource that you consume by creating
excessive files.  In my opinion, though, the administrative complications
of putting more than one document in a directory are not at all worth the
negligible disk space and i-node utilitization added by the directories.

It's kind of like saying, "We don't want to stress our filing room floor,
or have to pay for all those heavy filing cabinets, so we're just going to
put all our files in piles on the floor and lock the door."  Sure, you get
some advantages, but they're really not worth it.

> >  Also remember when nesting your directories that there are definite 
> > limits on the length of a path name on many machines (and do you really 
> > want a 32-deep path name?).

Very true, and while my trees can reach several levels of depth, I factor
this into my design.  Remember that trees can be wide, too.  I may have
several directories where you would have several .htm files, but the end
result is the same - except that my tree has one more level of depth (all 
told), all my files are grouped according to the page they're associated
with, and nobody ever sees a file extension in one of my URLs.  Another
advantage of putting all your files in one directory is that it helps make
the page portable; I can pick up the whole directory from one place and
plunk it in somewhere else without having to update many references.

On Mon, 13 May 1996, Jeremey Barrett wrote:

> A workaround for this might be symbolic links.  In general, they
> consume less resources than a real i-node... on some systems they are
> merely an entry in the i-node pointed to by the link.  You can use
> the server config files to map URL requests to wherever, and to configure
> access on each symlink separately without sucking up i-nodes with
> a bunch of directories.

I do use links in my site, but I do it to provide shortcuts, or to provide
multiple references to the same file to help maintain the portability I
mentioned before.  I don't see how they could be used to achieve the same
organizational value as a directory, though.

                                   w h e r e
                                    w i l l
                                      W E
                                      b e
                                   ,-.i n
                                   ` / ----
                                   ,' ()()1  ?
                                   ~~~ ----
References: