https://foojayio.github.io/website/today/author/scott-sosna/Articles written by Scott Sosna on foojay.io - Friends of OpenJDKHugoen-usThu, 29 Jan 2026 01:44:32 +0000https://foojayio.github.io/website/today/bootstrapping-a-java-file-system/Thu, 29 Jan 2026 01:44:32 +0000https://foojayio.github.io/website/today/bootstrapping-a-java-file-system/<p>So what does <em>file system</em> mean to you? Most think of file systems as directories and files accessed via your computer: local disk, remotely shared via <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NFS</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SMB</a> , thumb drives, something else. Sufficient for those who require basic file access, nothing more nothing less.</p> <p>That perspective of file systems is too limited: <a href="https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/what-is-version-control" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VCS</a> repositories, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_file" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">archive files</a> (zip/jar), remote systems can be viewed as file systems, potentially accessed via the same APIs used to for local file access while still maintaining security and data requirements. Or how about a file system which automatically <a href="https://www.dacast.com/blog/what-is-transcoding/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">transcodes</a> videos to different formats or extracts audio metadata for vector searches? Wouldn&rsquo;t it be cool to use standard APIs rather than create something customized? Definitely!</p>