Re: [tae] sockets vs. fds

On Fri, 5 Dec 2008, Dave CROCKER wrote:
> Melinda Shore wrote:
> >
> > Not to go too far afield, but I think there's consensus among us old
> > Unix folk that the mistake that CSRG made wasn't in the use of
> > addresses but in having "sockets" instead of using file descriptors.
> > This was actually fixed in SysVRSomethingOrOther with the introduction
> > of a network pseudo-filesystem (open("/net/192.168.1.1", ... ) with
> > ioctls but never got traction.
>
> It isn't immediately obvious to me why file descriptors would have had a
> major impact, so can you elaborate?

This isn't a question of sockets versus file descriptors, since sockets
*are* file descriptors. It is actually a question of how to specify
network addresses in the API, i.e. the BSD sockaddr structure versus the
Plan 9 extended pathname semantics. Using pathnames for everything would
eliminate warts like embedding pathnames in sockaddrs in order to address
a local IPC endpoint. On the other hand, filesystem pathnames are a
uniform hierarchial namespace, which isn't true for the combination of
network protocol, address, and port - what happens if you opendir("/net/")?

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot@dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/
FITZROY: WESTERLY 6 TO GALE 8 DECREASING 4 OR 5 FOR A TIME THEN BECOMING
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