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From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Are sockets the wave of the future?
Message-ID: <1990Aug28.212241.10099@Think.COM>
Date: 28 Aug 90 21:22:41 GMT
References: <9008242107.AA19843@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <1990Aug25.183437.1@rogue.llnl.gov> <725@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 31

In article <725@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> melohn@mrbill.Eng.Sun.COM (Bill Melohn) writes:
>>In article <9008242107.AA19843@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, JAZBO@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU
>>("James H. Coombs") writes:
>> Sun now states that no new applications should be developed at the socket
>> level.
>If this is stated in any Sun documentation or sales literature, it is
>in error.

It's stated in *boldface* at the beginnings of chapters 10 and 11 of the
SunOS 4.1 Network Programming Guide:

    WARNING:  Socket-based interprocess communication (IPC), while still
    supported, is no longer the preferred framework for transport-level
    programming....

    If you are building a new network application that requires direct
    access to transport facilities, use the TLI mechanisms....  New
    programs should not be based on sockets.

Are you saying that Sun does not actually suggest that TLI be preferred
over sockets for new programs?

Of course, if a program is intended to be portable to other systems that
only have sockets then Sun's recommendation should be ignored.  And Sun
will have to continue to support sockets for the foreseeable future, so
such programs will also be portable to SunOS.
--
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
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