From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id f67dd8cb for ; Tue, 27 Aug 2019 23:33:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id AC6B39BC98; Wed, 28 Aug 2019 09:33:56 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E8CD9BC01; Wed, 28 Aug 2019 09:33:42 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id D15589BC01; Wed, 28 Aug 2019 09:33:39 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8D94E9BBFD for ; Wed, 28 Aug 2019 09:33:39 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id CBEB035E0A8; Tue, 27 Aug 2019 16:33:38 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2019 16:33:38 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Bakul Shah Message-ID: <20190827233338.GM13570@mcvoy.com> References: <20190827003013.GS13570@mcvoy.com> <312b39a1-2944-100f-55e0-fc65b504d43d@kilonet.net> <20190827024511.GU13570@mcvoy.com> <20190827145556.GD13570@mcvoy.com> <20190827224002.GB15511@mcvoy.com> <20190827231625.55E991570CEA@mail.bitblocks.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20190827231625.55E991570CEA@mail.bitblocks.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Subject: Re: [TUHS] If not Linux, then what? X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 04:16:18PM -0700, Bakul Shah wrote: > On Tue, 27 Aug 2019 15:40:02 -0700 Larry McVoy wrote: > Larry McVoy writes: > > and I can tell you that sockets are WAY WAY better. I get the "it > > should have just been file I/O" except that I don't. I tried to > > write a library that let you open up /net/tcp/$host:$port and do > > I/O like it was a file descriptor. That works for a lot of stuff > > but I ran into problems quickly. A networking connection is not > > a file handle. You can make some stuff work but I couldn't figure > > out how to do all of it. You end up having to do ioctls to handle > > the stuff that doesn't fit well into the file system name space. > > I think plan 9 did this sort of thing, maybe Rob can prove me wrong > > or remember where it didn't match. > > Plan9 does a decent enough job. > > cpu% ls /net/tcp > /net/tcp/0 > /net/tcp/1 > /net/tcp/2 > /net/tcp/clone > /net/tcp/stats > > cpu% ls /net/tcp/1 > /net/tcp/1/ctl > /net/tcp/1/data > /net/tcp/1/err > /net/tcp/1/listen > /net/tcp/1/local > /net/tcp/1/remote > /net/tcp/1/status I dunno. I can't look at that and know what it means. So it means I have to toss (by the time this came out) a decade or more worth of knowing how to use sockets and learn this new model that may or may not go anywhere. > plan9 would've been a big improvement over *BSD or Linux. But > I think a conceptual merge was needed between some sane > version of Unix and plan9 so as to not throw out all the dusty > decks. That would have made a huge difference. The problem with Unix is it is largely good enough. All sorts of warts appeared over the years but you can get your job done. Plan 9 was such a big departure that it never gained traction. Having it conform to Posix or pick the most popular Unix (SunOS? BSD?) and conform to that. I'm biased but even if I wasn't I'd have picked SunOS, virtually all open source back in the day compiled out of the tarball on SunOS. Everyone else had to tinker or run configure or whatever.