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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!inferno.mpx.com.au!nsw1.news.telstra.net!news.telstra.net!news-out.internetmci.com!pull-feed.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.erols.net!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.bc.net!info.ucla.edu!news.cs.ucla.edu!not-for-mail From: Scott Michel <scottm@cs.ucla.edu> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Sys V Streams Vs. BSD Sockets Date: 26 Mar 1997 01:48:07 GMT Organization: UCLA CS Dept Lines: 23 Message-ID: <5h9v8n$s9t@delphi.cs.ucla.edu> References: <5h4rte$92a@news.interlog.com> <5h75v9$ta@uriah.heep.sax.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: taliesin.cs.ucla.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA release 970120] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:37910 J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de> wrote: : paulg@gold.interlog.com (Paul Griffith) wrote: : > I know this is a generic Unix question (if there is such a thing), but : > where can I find a FAQ on the major differences in streams and sockets : > ? Is one better for some tasks ?? : I don't know where you can find a good overview. Anyway, one of the : worst mistakes of SysV has it been to implement the IP layers on top : of STREAMS. It's nothing but slow. : STREAMS are good for implementing things like terminal line : disciplines, maybe even for slow networking services (like ISDN). I was hoping you'd mention that STREAMS is based on generic message passing, which is (inherently) slower than the function pointer based message passing in BSD. At each STREAMS layer, the module has to interpret the contents of the message. Contrast this with BSD, in which each function has a priori knowledge of the message contents and doesn't have to consume cycles figuring out what to do; it just does it. -scottm