Re: a note on notations (I'm going to be sorry I sent this to the list)

[haahr@mv.us.adobe.com (Paul Haahr)]

> Why not let %open take another argument, the file mode a la fopen?

perhaps.  any strong feelings either way?  my tendency is no, because often
when you want to replace one of %open, %create, and %append, you really want
only one of them, and checking the mode would make the process of spoofing
a little less convenient.

on the other hand, the simplicity of it is appealing.

> Are interfaces to the file system going to be a part of es?  Will
> read/write/lseek/tell appear?  Will I be able to write an RDB in es?

the eventual goal is that you will be able to use es as an extension
language for some other system, perhaps a database, perhaps a debugger,
and link it in ala tcl.  that's not going to happen for a while, however.

> Are interfaces to more generic system calls going to be part of es?
> Will I be able to use es as a systems programming language?

it's never been our goal to replace c or even perl with es, though i
certainly use es where many people use those languages.  i don't think
of it as a general systems programming language.  you could certainly
add any system calls you wanted as primitives, even syscall().  but that
you can do it doesn't mean you should.

paul