Re: "Why Reuser 4 still is not in" doc

Horst von Brand
2006-07-17T23:59:49Z

Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@linux01.gwdg.de> wrote:
> >Using this as an argument against plug-ins is a bit strange. I suppose
> >somebody could go overboard and use plug-ins to implement a subKernel.
> >Would this then imply that plug-ins are wrong?

> Ok, I've read some other threads too and so this claim should be adjusted:

> Writing a plugin (not necessarily r4 specific) that changes the semantics
> of objects based on context (i.e. turning a file into a dir) is a bad idea
> IMHO.

Right.

> Actually, BSD has this double-semantic to a limited degree: you can call
> `/usr/bin/vi /usr/bin` and get some binary representation of readdir.

How is that useful? read(2) errors out on a directory, and that is fine
with me. If xemacs wants to do funky stuff when opening a directory, it is
free to notice that special case and do something (readdir(3) and its ilk
are quite useful here) about it.

[Yes, I did work on some boxen where you could read directories, but with
the current variety of filesystems (and corresponding directory formats!)
in Linux this way lies utter madnes.]
--
Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org
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