From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:48:07 +0200
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Subject: Re: [9fans] I found this discussion pretty funny
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On Wednesday 17 of October 2012 06:40:45 ron minnich wrote:
> get to the part about why it's so great that pipe is a system call,
> not a device.
>=20
> This is the sort of back-and-forth that reminds me why I can't quite
> give up on plan 9 ...
>=20
> http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/everything_is_file.html
>=20
> "Do we create pipes by opening /dev/pipe? No. "
>=20
> and
>=20
> "Yes, some old-timers could argue that original UNIX didn't have sock=
ets,
> and that the BSD interface is ugly and an abomination and that it _sh=
ould_
> have been a namespace thing, but that argument falls flat on its face=
 when
> you realize that the "pipe()" system call _was_ in original UNIX, and=
 has
> all the same issues."
>=20
> ah well. It seems that the guy who wrote pipe() might not agree that
> he does not know much about Unix ... but so it goes.

a technical and organizational problem: back then Linux' /dev consisted=
 of=20
special files held on drive, its MAJOR/MINOR schema* getting dangerousl=
y=20
cramped.

those days Linux' /dev is usually mounted at boot and maintained by ker=
nel,=20
somewhat alike /proc; adding some more entries probably isn't that much=
 of a=20
problem.


--=20
dexen deVries

[[[=E2=86=93][=E2=86=92]]]

* MAJOR/MINOR being an unmountable namespace is quite ironic.