[erlang-questions] Ideas for a new Erlang

[Darren New]

Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
> On 26 Jun 2008, at 9:57 am, Ulf Wiger wrote:
>> Haskell has channels, and so does .NET (mailbox objects).

And Hermes, whose channels are closer to what I think is being proposed 
(mailboxes with typed messages on them that you can receive from only if 
you're holding the mailbox), and whose purpose is exactly the same as 
that of Erlang's.

>     if channels are "objects", they can go ANYWHERE.

That was one of the problems with Hermes implementation. The 
implementors found it difficult to get right what happens when you pass 
the receiving end of a channel back and forth between processes while 
many others are sending to it.

> But in Nystrom's proposal, "only the creator of a channel may
> receive messages from it" (p 5).  So the channels have to be
> created *inside* the new buffer process.  How then do other
> processes get their "hands" on them?

And in Hermes, this was a *good* thing. It kept people you didn't want 
sending you stuff from sending you stuff. You could give stdin and 
stdout channels to an untrusted process without giving them access to 
the "shut down the I/O subsystem" channel.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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