Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
How do users
share computer
files?
When was the last time you collaborated with a group to write
a paper or lab report? Did one member of your group write the
whole thing? Did a few of you sit together in a public computer
cluster and write the paper together? Or, did you each take turns
working on the same file by sharing it electronically? Sharing files
via a network has taken group projects to an entirely new level of
efficiency. No longer do you need to run out in the rain, disk in
hand, to a friend's dorm so that she can edit your draft of your
group paper. Instead, you and she can separately log on to a com
puter network, you can exchange files, and you're one step closer to
a finished paper. But how is this great convenience possible?
In the past, when machines worked in isolation rather than in
computer networks, each individual machine kept track of its own
files. When a user typed a document on her or his machine, the ma
chine stored an appropriate file on its own local hard drive. Today,
most of our computers are connected in networks, and files can be
distributed widely. You could, for example, easily write a group pa
per with a fellow student who's studying abroad in Australia, and it
would be almost as simple as if she were in the room next door.
Networks allow individuals to access files stored on many machines,
and in some cases several people can access the same files concur
rently. This type of file sharing is certainly convenient, but the under
lying technology is highly complex. In this chapter, we will address
basic questions on how files might be accessed and how several users
might share data in the same file.
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