I have no interest in chopping on the great work being done by you and my other friends in Pharo, but that doesn't mean it is feasible for me to use it in my business. While someone in the Pharo community said FileSystem over FileDirectory is "huge", I see it as an incremental API change, and close to being a matter of preference.
incremental? do you think you can implement a memory-based and/or git-based filesystem or 'remotely connected database-based file system' by just doing incremental changes to FileDirectory? good luck with such 'increments' :)
Yes, of course those capabilities could be added simply with factoring work and little disruption to the API. That's the promise object technology, encapsulation. Colin made a gorgeous domain model of an abstract FileSystem, no doubt about it. If we switch to it in Squeak I'm sure I will be happy once the conversion is done. I just think its worth asking, though, whether a "core" system should provide that rich a model out-of-the-box or instead just a bland, one-layer-above-the-primitives lightweight model ready to be easily wrapped by the user's _own_ rich model of a FileSystem. Is the core system suitable for tiny embedded programs and will they want a rich model or a basic one? Maybe Spoon will allow us to have our cake and eat it too..?