Julian Elischer writes:
> That is at least my opinion.. you may and do disagree. I guess you will
> say that numbers are just as dynamic, etc.etc. well I just think that in
> the REAL WORLD, as opposed to the theoretical world, names (which require
> no co-ordination between authors), are a better choice than numbers,
> which require some central naming authority.

A "real world" example of this is the idea of dynamically registered
tty line disciplines. Line disciplines are identified by hard-wired
constant integers (sys/ttycom.h):

  #define TTYDISC         0               /* termios tty line discipline */
  #define TABLDISC        3               /* tablet discipline */
  #define SLIPDISC        4               /* serial IP discipline */
  #define PPPDISC         5               /* PPP discipline */

A KLD can dynamically register a new line discipline. But guess
what? There's no way for your user program to easily figure out
what number it got. It will vary depending on what other line
disciplines are registered.

If instead line disciplines were identified by strings, like "tty",
"ppp", "slip", etc. then this problem would be a lot easier.

-Archie

___________________________________________________________________________
Archie Cobbs   *   Whistle Communications, Inc.  *   http://www.whistle.com

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