Is read_file() always called after an activity __init__?

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 3:12 AM, John Gilmore <gnu at toad.com> wrote:
> > Hmmm, so if my activity needs it's preferences before it can display
>  > anything to the user, potential future lazy loading of the data-store
>  > (to try and speed up general activity start-up time) is going to leave
>  > folks watching my activity with a blank screen for a lazy while? Ouch.
>
>  Ahem.  The Grand Unified Theory of OLPC was that the datastore/journal
>  were going to entirely replace the filesystem (as far as Activites
>  are concerned).  Activities aren't permitted to read/write the ordinary
>  Linux filesystem, according to this theory.

Not true. The datastore is for recording actions and storing the
documents associated to those. In other words: for saving the child's
work and allowing for efficient retrieval. Where have you found this
"theory"?

See the link below for an explanation of the suggested guidelines for
writing to the fs:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Low-level_Activity_API#Writable_Directories

>  If the datastore isn't just as ready, just as fast, and just as
>  available as the filesystem, e.g. for holding tiny little files that
>  rapidly keep the Activity's configuation options, then there's
>  something terribly wrong here.

Can you elaborate? I'm certainly not happy with the current state of
the DS, but would like to know more about which problems you see in
the current implementation.

Thanks,

Tomeu