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> filesystem access over HTTP isn't bigger than it is. I don't think it's a trade-off thing. It's conceptual; FS over HTTP is not bigger than it is because fi

> filesystem access over HTTP isn't bigger than it is. I don't think it's a trade-off thing. It's conceptual; FS over HTTP is not bigger than it is because filesystems are a much more stateful concept that often has to support coordinative transactions (like locks) whereas HTTP is a stateless protocol by design, so there's fundamentally a mismatch. That's why HTTP is better matched for an object system like S3 which is capable of being transported over stateless links and gives fewer coordination guarantees and is only eventually consistent.

anderspitman 6y ago
You can support locks for HTTP if you need them (WebDAV does), though I would argue they aren't necessary for a large number of useful tasks. You don't have to implement all the semantics of a filesystem in order to benefit. The main benefit comes from making a filesystem-like construct accessible in the browser. As I said before, Google Drive is a good example of this (and it's an object system, so that's an orthogonal issue), but it's a complicated protocol (as is S3) in a walled garden.