"We have persistant objects, they're called files"
About this Quote
A whole philosophy of computing is smuggled into that deadpan line: stop reinventing persistence. Thompson isn’t admiring files as a quaint Unix artifact; he’s puncturing the recurring tendency in software to treat long-lived state as an exotic problem needing a bespoke “object store,” a framework, a platform, a ceremony. His joke lands because it’s both true and a little accusing. If you need data to outlive a process, the operating system already gave you the most universal contract on the machine: a file.
The intent is practical, almost paternal. Thompson helped build Unix, where the file is less a document than a unifying interface: device, socket, pipe, configuration, log. “Everything is a file” isn’t a slogan so much as an escape hatch from complexity. By calling files “persistent objects,” he translates fashionable vocabulary back into an older, sturdier abstraction, revealing how much of the novelty is marketing and how little is necessity.
The subtext is skepticism toward object-oriented metaphysics when it collides with reality. Objects in memory feel coherent; objects on disk are brittle. Versioning, corruption, permissions, backups, portability, human inspection - the mundane stuff - is where systems live or die. Files force you to confront that mundanity directly, and their very bluntness is why they endure.
Contextually, this reads as a Unix elder watching cycles of computing rediscover the same needs under new names. It’s a reminder that progress often looks like better tools for old primitives, not the abolition of primitives. Thompson’s wit is economical: one sentence that deflates hype and re-centers the OS as the quiet backbone of persistence.
The intent is practical, almost paternal. Thompson helped build Unix, where the file is less a document than a unifying interface: device, socket, pipe, configuration, log. “Everything is a file” isn’t a slogan so much as an escape hatch from complexity. By calling files “persistent objects,” he translates fashionable vocabulary back into an older, sturdier abstraction, revealing how much of the novelty is marketing and how little is necessity.
The subtext is skepticism toward object-oriented metaphysics when it collides with reality. Objects in memory feel coherent; objects on disk are brittle. Versioning, corruption, permissions, backups, portability, human inspection - the mundane stuff - is where systems live or die. Files force you to confront that mundanity directly, and their very bluntness is why they endure.
Contextually, this reads as a Unix elder watching cycles of computing rediscover the same needs under new names. It’s a reminder that progress often looks like better tools for old primitives, not the abolition of primitives. Thompson’s wit is economical: one sentence that deflates hype and re-centers the OS as the quiet backbone of persistence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Coding & Programming |
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