Multi-User Compatibility

One of the things I listed on the recent wish-list of "taxes" features I want to support in LibQ is multi-user compatibility. What exactly is meant by that? Well, literally, it means the ability to share a single computer with multiple people, and not step on the toes of others.

In practice, it comes down to a game of permissions. In a typical multi-user system (unlike DOS, Windows 1.0-3.1, and Windows 9x, which were fundamentally single-user systems), disk resources are divided among the different users of the computer. Typically there will be one or more administrators, which have access to everything, and a number of individual users, who only have access to a portion of the disk.

In a strict multi-user system like Unix, individual users can only write to files and directories in their partition, called their home directory on Unix (while Windows NT doesn't really promote this idea by name, there is in fact a perfect analog to the home directory). Everything outside this home directory is likely to be read-only, and some of it (system directories, other users' home directories, etc.) may not even be readable to the individual users at all. Each user potentially has access to different directories than other users (this is always the case with home directories, but it may apply to things outside the home directories, as well).

To Unix users and programmers, this system is ancient, as Unix was designed (and operated) this way from day one. However, to Windows users, this is a fairly new concept. As mentioned, DOS, 16-bit Windows, and Windows 9x do not really have the concept of user isolation. Contrary to what most Slashdotters will swear, Windows NT was designed from the beginning to support user isolation; however, NT 3.1-4.0 (3.1 was the first version; it was called 3.1 because its interface was based on the Windows 3.1 shell) were primarily used (on home computers) by hardcore nerds, while Windows 2000 won over the casual geeks, and it wasn't until Windows XP (back in 2001) that the technophobic end user installed NT on their home computer. The end result of this is that, even today, programs that do not work on multi-user systems plague the NT platform, and this is the reason so many NT users run as administrator today.

Where I'm going with this topic is this: learn to write multi-user compatible programs; it is not a useless skill. If you plan to write Unix programs, you're going to have to learn; but even if you're just a Windows coder, it would save people like me a considerable amount of pain if you would still learn how to write programs that play nice.

Next time (whenever I write another technical post): how to write multi-user compatible programs on Windows and Unix. And coming soon: multi-user compatibility hall of shame.