[usocket-devel] Re: IPv6 support in usocket

[Tomas Hlavaty]

Hi Anton,

in theory, it's a noble target.  Problem is that there are inherently 
non-portable things to consider, e.g. how does iolib handle control-c?  
So for each supported implementation, there needs to be a bit of code 
that cuts directly into the lowest level of the host lisp environment.  
It seems doable though.  But still, cffi dependency can be undesirable 
so the original (non-iolib) usocket is still a better solution in those 
cases.

Also, usocket has heavy posix bias.  Ideally, it would be better to 
identify possible use-cases and create and api that would allow to 
embrace any of them.  For example, the idea of wait-* function makes 
usocket inherently non-portable to non-posix systems.  I am still 
searching  for such unifying all embracing io api:-)

Cheers,

Tomas

On 06/24/2013 12:18 PM, Anton Vodonosov wrote:
> I also want to highlight the advantage of IOLib based sockets.
>
> The underlying socket API provided by most of the OSes today is the same - BSD sockets.
> Various Lisp implementations multiply this basic API by proving their own, distinct lisp versions of socket APIs.
> On top of it we create a compatibility layer, to unify the API.
>
> OSes: 1 API "BSD sockets"  => Lisp impls: 10 APIs => usocket 1 API.
>
> If we use some FFI library like IOLib to access OS socket APIs we avoid all these redundant 10 intermediate APIs.
>
> Best regards,
> - Anton