STREAMS query

[Steve Langdon]

In article <499 at cheviot.uucp> Santosh Shrivastava writes:
> 
> Streams imply connections! There are many applications that can be
> adeqately handeled by connectionless datagrams. I reckon there will always
> be a need for interfaces supporting both streams and datagrams, and
> in this respect Berkeley sockets are superior. Streams are good mainly
> for terminal handling (as in V8) but to base your entire networking
> on them is surely a bad idea.

I agree that there is a need for both connection mode and connectionless
communication.  However, it is a mistake to assume that this is an issue
which directly affects the choice between streams and sockets.

The functionality missing in streams (as described in Ritchie's paper),
is multiplexing.  Without multiplexing you cannot implement kernel resident
versions of any of the major protocol suites (TCP/IP, OSI, etc.).  If a
way can be found to add multiplexing to streams, then either connection mode
or connectionless service should be possible using streams.

-- 
Stephen J. Langdon                  ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!sjl

[ The article above is not an official statement from any organization
  in the known universe. ]