From: Bjorn Borud <borud-news@...>
Date: 2006-11-01T11:30:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Nonblocking IO read

[ara.t.howard@noaa.gov]
| 
| it can't be done.  search the archives, this sort of thing almost
| always indicates a design flaw.  for instance - what will your
| program do if there is no input?

nonblocking IO is not a design-flaw; it is something that is in common
use and is supported by most languages with a decent socket API.  on
some OS'es this is even available for file IO (although widespread
language support seems to lag behind).  

Java for example got proper nonblocking socket IO in 1.4 (see
JSR-000051 "New I/O APIs for the JavaTM Platform").

for examples of use you might want to check out the Reactor pattern
and other patterns for concurrent programming.

-Bj�rn