Relative efficiency of external interfacing methods

[James Hague]

> > What do you mean by "newer, more direct method" ??
> > 
> 
> he probally meant the dynamic share library version, a linked in driver. :)

Actually, I was under the mistaken assumption that IG used a different 
method than ports, but I now see that they are exactly the same thing.

>The advantage of a linked-in driver is speed, the disadvantages are
>the difficulties that are associated with running together with
>the erlang runtime system. No blocking syscalls etc.

I've been considering trying this, because I think it would be 
interesting.  Are there any good examples?  (There's probably at least 
one in the documentation, but I haven't come across it yet :)