I've decided that after reading Kostadis' interesting and well-written series on why WAFL is not a file-system; that it is a platypus! In much that same way that a Platypus is mostly mammalian but does some-things in a distinctly non-mammalian way; WAFL is mostly a file-system!
So from now on; I shall be refering to WAFL as the Platypus Layer!
It will make such papers as this much more fun; replacing the words 'file system' when 'file system' refers to WAFL, with platypus!
Kostadis' problem is that NetApp's own literature refers to WAFL as a file-system all over the place. In the original patents, in Dave Hitz's blog and in their own marketing!
And at the end of the day, as I pointed out on Kostadis' blog; it doesn't really matter, as long as it works sufficiently well to meet my needs and provides the features I need.
PS I like the Platypus; its existence proves that the divine might have a sense of humour and as such it should be cherished! I'm not saying WAFL proves a sense of humour but it does show originality and the ability to go against the herd, another important quality, especially when the herd are laughing and saying that you are mad!! You might be mad but you might also be inspired.
It’s one of those ideas that demands its own vocabulary. Sometimes, you fall back on words (like filesystem) that inadequately describe the differences. While calling it a platypus is possibly not quite what I have in mind when I think of WAFL (no surprise there), it’ll do. Because it makes the others all dodos.
Maybe I’m just a simpleton…maybe I’m not as traveled as Captain John Hunter, but your name choice, maybe accidentally funnier then you think!
When the specimen of the Duckbilled Platypus showed up on the door steps of George Shaw…well just read it for yourself (http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Duckbilled_Platypus/)
That is very funny and okay, I may have been more apt than I thought;
“impossible not to entertain some doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal, and to surmise that there might have been practised some arts of deception in its structure.”
I did know that when the platypus first turned up; it was thought to be a hoax but that quote is too good. I think that I’ve found the new corporate creature for NetApp!!!
http://dominoyesmaybe.blogspot.com/2008/05/very-rare-platypus-joke.html
Plato and a platypus walked into a bar. The bartender looked at the platypus, looked at Plato, and raised an eyebrow. Plato shrugged. “She looked better in the cave!”
Not recommended, but…
http://www.platypus.org.uk/humour01.htm
This actually made me laugh out loud!
Back atcha!
http://blogs.netapp.com/shadeofblue/2008/10/the-fallacy-of.html
Blimey!! Storage blogs wandering off into the realms of evolutionary biology!!