From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <4c3b0a64d7aeadf153f71455539ad27a@quanstro.net>
Date: Thu,  2 Feb 2006 19:00:10 -0600
From: quanstro@quanstro.net
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Van Jacobsen's network stack restructure
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On Thu Feb  2 18:32:34 CST 2006, ggm@apnic.net wrote:
> 	(f)open() ... read/write .. (f)close() on a name, then you
> either dick with the name, or dick with the open FD, or invoke the gods.
> 
> sockets() in some ways was about deliberately breaking the model to
> make things like ioctl() more plausibly tenable. Who really cares if
> you have to setsockopt() once you bought into having to do the whole
> socket() thing in the first place?
> 
> -G

the argument that keeps coming up seems to be "you can write to a socket,
so how bad can it be". the corollary seems to be "you can pass the fd around".

i believe the corollary is false. how would you tell your favorite editor to open a file on
the other end of a socket?

it is a major problem that the network (with a socket interface) is outside the namespace.
it results in stuff like /dev/tcp in bash/gawk.

furthermore, it's not true that you can "just write" to a socket. for instance, udp
sockets cannot be written to. 

- erik