[comp.sys.amiga] IPC Whatever you do, do this

dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (03/15/88)

	Make the format general enough so that an independant program can
	relay packets to remote machines without having to understand every
	packet type in existance.

					-Matt

peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (03/17/88)

In article ... dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
> 	Make the format general enough so that an independant program can
> 	relay packets to remote machines without having to understand every
> 	packet type in existance.

This is a good point... how can you pass information to a remote machine?
Well, to begin with a number of the elements in packets don't make sense
on a remote machine. How do you deal with:

	Message Ports
	File Locks
	Windows
	RastPorts
	File Handles

and so on? On the other hand, there are a lot of messages that DO make sense...
for example:

	Bitmaps
	IFF data
	Text
	Object descriptions

and so on. Note that all of these reduce to IFF or planned extensions to IFF.

I think that for this sort of data the best way to transfer it is still via
AmigaDOS devices and clipboards. Perhaps a better interface library for
clips would solve this problem (another brick in the wall, eh Peter?).

How would we go about setting things up so you could "save" an IFF file from
Deluxe Paint into "Butcher:"?
-- 
-- a clone of Peter (have you hugged your wolf today) da Silva  `-_-'
-- normally  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter                U
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (03/18/88)

[NOW what the hell is Reagan doing?]

peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) wrote:
>a number of the elements in packets don't make sense on a remote machine.
>Message Ports/File Locks/Windows/RastPorts/File Handles
>I think that for this sort of data the best way to transfer it is still via
>AmigaDOS devices and clipboards.

Agreed.  I'd like to see file handlers know about each other, so they
can talk to each other (exchange file handles, locks, do NFS, etc),
and the window manager(s) have an idea about other window managers, to
be able to move windows to any screen, on any machine.

However, the IPC scheme must be flexible enough to handle these items
regardless of what they are.  In effect, the IPC mechanism shouldn't
have to know what its passing around, just as MsgPorts don't know what
the Messages mean.

..Bob
-- 
Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept.  page@swan.ulowell.edu  ulowell!page
		"Nicaragua" is Spanish for "Vietnam."