Re: ports and file descriptors

[Martin Grabmueller]

> From: Tom Lord <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 23:05:13 -0700 (PDT)
> 
> Have any of you had a chance to look over the unification of ports and
> file descriptors in Systas Scheme?  Is it a good idea for Guile?

I have read the Systas documentation, but I don't know whether it
would be good for Guile (see below).

> Briefly, descriptors are first class objects and may be either
> buffered or not buffered, pseudo-descriptor or non-pseudo-descriptor.
> Buffers can be private to the I/O library, or shared with Scheme as
> strings.
> 
> A buffered descriptor is a port, suitable for use with read.
> 
> A buffered pseudo-descriptor, whose buffer is also a Scheme string, is
> a string port.

I failed to see the advantages of you approach.  Could you give some?

Thanks,
  'martin