Re: Random idea:

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski <maniek@beer.com>]

On Thu, Dec 30, 1999 at 01:10:51PM -0900, George A. Dowding wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> * Obligatory Random Idea:
> 
> Has anyone taken a look at Plan 9/Inferno.  They have made some
> interesting design decisions.  One of the most interesting is to
> elevate the concept of files.  Not only are all physical devices files 
> (like Unix), but running programs can be treated as files.  An example 
> given was a name server.  To get the information a process would write 
> the request to the name server file.  Reading that same file after the 
> request would provide the address information.  Apperently the idea
> was to limit the type of operations that processes had to provide to
> basic file reads and writes.
> 
> To make a shell metaphor:
> 
> $echo gnu.hurd.org > /system/nameserver
> $cat /system/nameserver
> 
> Name:    www.gnu.org
> Address:  198.186.203.18
> Aliases:  hurd.gnu.org

Does it have to be opened between writing a request and reading a response ?
If it have to, it makes using such files from shell quite difficult.
Either designing system where file doesnt have to be opened (how requests and responses
are to be linked then, we cannot rely on the same order of reads and writes) or
designing shell which can keep files opened between read and write is a bit problematic.