Re: [9fans] Client/server program sample code request..

[Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu>]

In article <20000922182142.4DD31199D0@mail> you write:
>I think that, at least at the C interface level,
>the sockets problem stems mainly from trying
>to solve everything in C rather than with a 
>(very) little language like the dial strings.
>I'm not up on my history of which came first, 
>but the dial strings were in Research Unix
>too.

I never did really understand this.  It seems like Joy
was the kind of guy who ``got it,'' so why did he make
such a nasty decision?  To be sure, the ``Network UNIX''
RFC was a much saner design for the ARPAnet, and was
available around the time the Berkeley folks were doing
sockets.  It seems what they did goes against everything
that Unix stood for at that time.  It's especially weird
since Joy did well with other things in the ``little
language'' department (eg, termcap).

>A more vivid example of this distinction is the 
>difference in usability between an embedded
>Tk for Limbo or C, which just provides a
>function tkcmd(char*) to which you pass Tk
>syntax, and a purely extant-language-based
>solution like GTK+, in which all the elegant
>Tk syntax is lost to clumsy C or C++ expressions
>because someone was (probably unnecessarily)
>worried about efficiency.

Amen.  Too much concern for efficiency drives
software bloat.  Ironically, it usually has the
effect of making the software significantly
less efficient.

	- Dan C.