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From: mishkin@apollo.uucp (Nathaniel Mishkin)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: A variant of the streams idea
Message-ID: <2b09dcd8.3166@apollo.uucp>
Date: Mon, 30-Dec-85 14:18:29 EST
Article-I.D.: apollo.2b09dcd8.3166
Posted: Mon Dec 30 14:18:29 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 31-Dec-85 06:26:07 EST
References: <2416@ukma.UUCP> <372@ncr-sd.UUCP> <964@brl-tgr.ARPA> <376@ncr-sd.UUCP> <2afa6c05.3166@apollo.uucp> <3886@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: mishkin@apollo.UUCP (Nathaniel Mishkin)
Organization: Apollo Computer Inc., Chelmsford MA
Lines: 25
Summary: 

In article <3886@ut-sally.UUCP> ark@sally.UUCP (Arthur M. Keller) writes:
>I would argue that what you have really done is implemented the concept
>of streams using the concept of objects.  Since the concept of objects
>is at least as powerful as arbitrary procedure calls, this is not too
>surprising.

I just want to point out that I don't think I claimed to have invented
the concept of object.  In fact, my original message contained:

    Basically, every "object" (read "file" if you're not familiar with
    the Smalltalk/object-oriented view of the world) has a type ... 

Also, I guess I assumed that since stream I/O is one of the classic
application areas of object-oriented style, I didn't need to point out
that I didn't come up with that idea either.

One thing I think I would like to claim as being novel is the application
and implementation of this approach for "large" objects (i.e. things like
files) in a conventional production operating system environment.

There are very few truly new ideas in computer science...

                -- Nat Mishkin
                   Apollo Computer
                   {uw-beaver, wanginst, yale}!apollo!mishkin