Re: master 1e3b0f2: Improve doc strings of project.el

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 18.07.2020 12:05, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

> > The docs say it's represented by a number, but it's not a "real"
> > number (you never do any arithmetic with it), and an fd can be
> > backed by very different mediums: a file on disk, a network socket,
> > a pipe, etc. And everything is a number in C anyway. It's an
> > "opaque" value.
>
> Yes, this is some kind of OO. But it leaks a couple of things:
> first, it's a "small number" (i.e. not some random 64 bit
> address, but the pattern of counting up from zero and of building
> bitmaps of FDs is considered --mostly-- viable), i.e. the mental
> model around is that the kernel "has" a table somewhere indexed
> by FD.

So it leaks a little.

> This detail wasn't probably intended to leak in the first
> place, but was just "the obvious thing to do" in a world in which
> machines with a 32 bit address space were considered serious iron.

I think, at best, you are getting a sense that it is a pointer. But one 
you can't easily dereference.

And there can be just about any data structure behind that pointer.

It's not an ironclad abstraction (fds can have various kinds of 
properties, as well as slightly-incompatible behaviour, as you have 
pointed out). Still, it doesn't invite the caller to use whaterver data 
structure is behind it directly.

> > When using it in a piece of code, you don't always have to know what
> > kind of file it is. Or you just know it's a socket, for instance.
> > But you know there are certain things one can do with a file
> > descriptor, like passing it to 'write' or 'read'.
>
> Yes, definitely. Barring errors in the interface design (read()
> returning zero bytes is "we're done" in the case of a file and
> "currently nothing there, but do come back and retry later" for
> a socket :-)

Right.

> My point in all of that is that (some) leak in the abstractions
> might lubricate change.

It might, I suppose. But Elisp is pretty transparent, so it's not 
possible to create a similar barrier anyway.

> Writing in the docs "here be dragons, we might well change that
> implementation from under you [2]" is fair, and IMO better than
> "warranty void if opened" ;-)

At least the doc should state the information that would help the client 
use the interface correctly first.