For those unaware, the article hints at a system that really does believe everything is a file: Plan 9 from Bell Labs, the “second system”/spiritual successor o

For those unaware, the article hints at a system that really does believe everything is a file: Plan 9 from Bell Labs, the “second system”/spiritual successor of Unix. But it’s also worth pointing out that NT’s kernel is designed around a hierarchical namespace of “objects,” where various subsystems slot in at different levels to take over responsibility of the rest of the path. Unlike Plan 9, this is separate from the userland filesystem. It might be most familiar to people who have installed NT 4 (or maybe 3.51?) through XP via bootable floppy: SETUP.EXE shows strings like `\Device\HardDisk0` in the status bar. Just pointing out how the same general idea can take distinct forms of implementation.