From: Hugh Sasse <hgs@...>
Date: 2007-08-16T23:23:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby and Solaris door library

On Thu, 16 Aug 2007, Hiro Asari wrote:

> On 8/15/07, Berger, Daniel <Daniel.Berger@qwest.com> wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Hiro Asari [mailto:asari.ruby@gmail.com]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 7:04 AM
> > > To: ruby-core@ruby-lang.org
> > > Subject: Re: Ruby and Solaris door library
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > >
> > > > I think this is best done as a 3rd party library given that it's
> > > > specific to one platform.
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > > Dan
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > Hi, Dan,
> > >
> > > Now that Solaris is open source, it is conceivable that door
> > > library will be ported to another platform, much like ZFS.
> >
> > When it actually *is* ported, and people *actually* use it, then we
> > should consider merging it into core. Until then, I vote no.
> 
> I wonder if anyone other than Dan and Urabe-san has opinions.

I see the wisdom of the YAGNI approach, but solaris is out there, 
and having this in the code base will remind others of related edge
cases, so having it in would act as a force pushing developers in a
direction where it will be easier to add for other systems later.

I'm thinking about the case of the Unix developer who created a
directory containing single character filenames for all the legal
characters in a Unix filename, and that the directory stayed there
for a long time, tripping inadequately tested programs, helping to
make them more robust. I forget who this was now, and which book I
read it in, but I think it was one of Programming Pearls, The Art of
Unix Programming, or The Practice of Programming,

The analogy is less than exact, so my conclusion (that adding it
would be good) may be false.
> -- 
> Hirotsugu Asari

        Thank you,
        Hugh