Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!agate!ucbvax!ernie.Berkeley.EDU!sklower From: sklower@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Sklower) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Sockets vs streams. An attempt to answer the original question Message-ID: <38584@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 31 Aug 90 19:48:37 GMT References: <9008242107.AA19843@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <1990Aug27.111656.1@amazon.llnl.gov> <1990Aug28.162400.17811@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: sklower@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Keith Sklower) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 22 In article <1990Aug28.162400.17811@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >The way to do i/o on Dennis's streams was with "read" and "write". >Network i/o, in general, looked *exactly* like local device i/o. This >is the way it should be, unlike what both Berkeley and AT&T have done >(both have reluctantly conceded that most people want to use "read" >and "write" and have made that work, but their hearts were clearly >elsewhere). I find this inaccurate, partronizing and tiresome. I have worked around Berkeley since 1978 and although was not a member of the actual unix group in 1982 while TCP was being incorporated, attended their meetings and seminars. I assure you that it was the design goal then, that only ``sophisticated process'' would need a more elaborate mechanism to establish a network connection, but that once having established one, that it should be usable as a completely ordinary file descriptor by ``naive'' processes like the date command, using read and write, and that the file descriptor should be inherited by the normal unix means (fork & exec). It sounds to me like Henry is attempting to rewrite history (for his own possibly political motives).