Re: Re: [9fans] I suppose if there's no other way to do it (a quote from the tcl web site)

["David Leimbach" <leimy2k@gmail.com>]

On 8/11/06, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> *not* providing a library for these things is the key.
> for example, page doesn't link against the jpeg library.
> it just runs jpg.  nedmail doesn't link against the mime
> library, it uses upas/fs and marshal.

I guess my point is it's just one abstraction that needs to be filled
in to get the same expressive behavior as you get by making a 9P
capable server for connecting to a given resource.  Then you get the
"same I/O commands you'd use..." as the quoted paragraph states.

If they're saying TCL is somehow deeper than OOP, I didn't absorb that
information from the copied paragraph.  OOP systems are very
open-ended, they're just terribly "close topped"  (which is how we end
up with things like Aspect Oriented Programming so you can cross-cut
functionality into an existing system rather than just extending and
overriding.)

>
> if plan 9 provided fancy library interfaces for such things,
> we might be temted by the sirens "shared libraries" and "oop
> languages".
>

Right but I'm not sure what that had to do with TCL?  ;-).  In some
ways having a binary you can call from another process *is* a kind of
"shared library" already.  Just as the kernel is a shared library of
sorts.... but yeah I understand your point.

Plan 9's abstractions for doing these things in the OS itself are (for
the lack of a better word at this early hour for me) "freakin'
badass!".  As a result I can far more with a shell, which is a safer
programming environment in terms of resource management I think, than
I can in pretty much any other programming language.

If people thought Unix is a good programming environment, they really
should give Plan 9 a try.

> - erik
>
> On Fri Aug 11 02:22:13 CDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> > On 8/10/06, Ronald G Minnich <rminnich@lanl.gov> wrote:
> > > "Sure, some other languages have libraries for accessing web or ftp
> > > sites, or looking inside zip files. But how many provide an open ended
> > > and extensible system that allows you to access any such resource using
> > > the same I/O commands you'd use with regular disk files?"
> > >
> >
> > C++ iostreams perhaps?  I've got one for sockets, pipes etc...  Now
> > that's not the same as FTP sites and zip files, but it could be done.
> > Then you can use the same iterators and algorithms to glue it all
> > together.  In fact, I think I saw a zlibstream once.  I was thinking
> > of writing one.
> >
> > It's done via a blend of template generic programming and OOP.  Too
> > bad C++ quickly becomes quite confusing and is very easy to abuse and
> > make difficult to maintain (probably an understatement).
> >
> > Plan 9 gives me a lot of that power right at the shell because the OS
> > multiplexes 9P so well.
> >
> >
> > > hmm. in the language library? Well, I guess if that's all you can do ...
> > > but this is a really odd quote.
> > >
> > > And I actually like tcl ...
> > >
> > > ron
>