Re: [dev] Conversation with Anselm R. Garbe of suckless.org

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 11:42 PM, Charlie Kester <corky1951_AT_comcast.net> wrote:
> On Tue 15 Sep 2009 at 13:51:44 PDT Amit Uttamchandani wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 09:33:22PM +0200, markus schnalke wrote:
>>>
>>> You have the separation in the operation system then. Single
>>> independent programs take the place of classes. You can combine them
>>> to larger programs.
>>>
>>
>> Again I agree here but how is this accomplished? Through UNIX pipes? How
>> do you transfer data between these programs? Do you use something like
>> inter process communications? Sockets?
>
> Yes, or something like 9P.  (Beat you to it, Uriel!)

Damn! ;)

Another extremely obscure technique I'm sure nobody has heard of is
using... *gasp* libraries! 9P and pipes have their places are great in
many cases, but for low level stuff, it is hard to beat the function
call.

But libraries also need to follow the Unix principles of doing only
one thing and doing it well, down to the function level. People
forgets that one of the reasons for Unix's success was a set of sane
and useful libraries, of course this tradition was abandoned as soon
as the kids on LSD got hold of the system, just compare the bizarre
sockets API to Plan 9's simple, elegant and powerful dial(2):
http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/2/dial

Peace

uriel

>
> Does anyone nowadays still remember the lessons of the structured
> programming paradigm that preceded OOD?  It's amazing how well the Unix
> approach exemplifies the structured design virtues of modularity,
> decoupling, cohesion, etc.  The OO stuff *tries* to achieve the same
> virtuosity, but doesn't succeed nearly as well.
>
Received on Wed Sep 16 2009 - 04:15:23 UTC