On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 22:23:20 EDT erik quanstrom <quans...@quanstro.net> wrote: > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 21:39:06 EDT erik quanstrom <quans...@quanstro.net> wr > ote: > > > > The feature I want is the ability to pass not just character > > > > values in environment or pipes but arbitrary Scheme objects. > > > > But that requires changes at the OS level (or mapping them > > > > to/from strings, which is a waste if both sides can handle > > > > structured objects). > > > > > > !? the ability to pass typed records around is an idea that was > > > tarred, feathered, drawn and quartered by unix. files, and therefore > > > streams, have no type. they are byte streams. > > > > I was not talking about "records" but s-expressions. "json" > > is kind of sort of the same thing. Without a generally useful > > and simple such mechanism, people end up devising their own. > > The 9p format for instance. And go has typed channels. > > it sounds like you're saying 9p isn't useful. .... i must be reading > your post incorrectly.
9p is quite useful. But the same semantics could've been implemented using a more universal but compact structured format such as s-expr. It is not the only choice but to me it seems to strike a reasonable balance (compared to bloaty XML at one extreme, tightly packed binary structures at another, and byte streams with printf/parse encode/decode at the third extreme).
