Files

[joepio]

See atomicdata-dev/atomic-data-docs#57 for Atomic Data Spec issue

• Upload files
• Download files
• Deal with large files (e.g. paginated PDF's, streaming videos)

Strategies

Use a folder in some dir + actix-files

• Easy to implement
• High degree of control over folder, easy to use, easy to manage
• Might cause OS-specific filesystem quirks (things with folders and rights, max file length, whatever)
• Hard to secure
• Does not scale well

Store files in the DB

Files are a new datatype, which contains just a big u8 array + a MIME type or something

• Harder to implement - especially the HTTP side of things (ByteServing, mime headers for all files). I'd rather not.
• Forces me to think about how files work in atomic data - which is probably a good thing.
• Harder for users to manage - hard to beat a filesystem.
• Possible to encrypt files
• Possible for the server to give guarantees over files - server has more control over DB than filesystem
• Might be hard to optimize / make performant (even though I use a simple K/V store as DB)

Use an S3 like external object storage system

Instead on relying on Atomic server itself to deal with storing stuff, we can use some external object storage service. Mimio is an interesting open source contender.

• Scales well for more centralized servers working with Atomic
• Doesn't fit well with the no-dependencies proposition of Atomic.

[joepio]

Same as #72