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From: bzs@WORLD.STD.COM (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Sockets vs streams.  An attempt to answer the original question
Message-ID: <9009060057.AA21297@world.std.com>
Date: 6 Sep 90 00:57:35 GMT
References: <PCG.90Sep2194524@athene.cs.aber.ac.uk>
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I think we're all looking at this in far too narrow a context. There
are many issues that are being hand-waved (note, anyone who assumes I
believe one way or the other on this issue please send me my decision
as I haven't received it yet.)

For example, when I address something that reaches out into, say,
network name space, where does my request go? Does it go to a
specialized driver that takes care of things like DNS resolution?
Does it get handed back up to a user-level process? What?

I still think the terminal example (open("/dev/tty/9600/even/noecho",...)
was a good one.

Someone sent me mail saying "oh, that's just ioctl()'s".

What magic! Sockets are bad, ioctls are good, such power in a name.

The real issue is:

	A) Are we trying to simplify/generalize the *user*
	interface so most any network/etc operation can be
	specified in a string, wherever a file name is expected?

or

	B) Are we trying to simplify/generalize the *programmer*
	interface so they don't have to know about those nasty
	socket calls?

Careful, I believe those two goals can be very much in conflict. I
also don't believe that everyone discussing this issue on this list
falls into the same camp. So we're having definite communications
problems, state your objectives!

        -Barry Shein

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