> The tree structure wasn't updated fully until the program was closed, because writing to the floppy was so slow
Not to mention in many cases on the original Macs, you probably didn't even have the program floppy in the drive when you were working, because with only 400K on a disk you had to swap to the disk with your document on it.
I recall Inside Macintosh had a big disclaimer at the top that warned "The Resource Manager IS NOT A DATABASE". It was originally just meant to handle localizable resources, but since it was already there it was handy for developers (including Apple themselves) to use to load any kind of structured data. And who didn't love going messing around in system and application files with ResEdit?
>It was originally just meant to handle localizable resources
Not quite. An application's executable code was also stored in the resource fork, as CODE resources (one or several, so parts of the code could be loaded and unloaded as needed; initially there was also a size limit of 64k per CODE resource).
When Apple switched to PPC, the PPC code was stored in the data fork and the 68k code in CODE resources.
I may have unconsciously filled in some blanks in my memory that weren't actually there - the story mentions Andy Hertzfeld used the Resource Manager to manage the swapping in and out of code segments and I think I read it as a hack to use the Resource Manager in a way it wasn't intended, but it may very well have been intended that way to begin with.
Not to mention in many cases on the original Macs, you probably didn't even have the program floppy in the drive when you were working, because with only 400K on a disk you had to swap to the disk with your document on it.
I recall Inside Macintosh had a big disclaimer at the top that warned "The Resource Manager IS NOT A DATABASE". It was originally just meant to handle localizable resources, but since it was already there it was handy for developers (including Apple themselves) to use to load any kind of structured data. And who didn't love going messing around in system and application files with ResEdit?