Chris,
I have to completely disagree.
The idea of breaking a complex object into simpler parts is not just theories and extremism.
Assigning several roles to an object is sometimes convenient for a start, but generally does scale very badly.
It's a collective experience driven by pragmatic considerations in developping in all sort of languages.
And it's my own experience too.

A file is like the container, the stream is about reading/writing the contents.
I think I remember the confusion was made at the beginning in st-80, because it was simple enough at that time.
So it's rather an historical slag, not something that was added later for this special case.
And it is something that should have been revised, because when we added pipes, sockets or other external streams, that ruined the idea of confusing the two things into a not well delimited blob without clear responsibilities.
Though we kept the original implementation and started to distort the package by adding faked polymorphism like name ^'john doe'.

Clearly, I need no stream on its contents to rename a file, query its permissions, or delete it, so why bother with internal states of a stream if I'm interested in handling the file?
If I am interested about the contents, I don't need to ever know about the path of the file nor its name, or shall I change a $A read from it into a $B if the file is named 'turnAllAinB'?

Where exactly are we going to need this encapsulated blob which pretend to be both a file and a stream? I would be happy to show that a rewrite is both simple and good looking at end application sites.
Of course, inside the lava of multi year hacked stream hierarchy, it might be a bit less obvious to disentangle the spaghetti.
Hence more radical solutions: table rase and complete rewrite.





2013/11/13 Chris Muller <asqueaker@gmail.com>
On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Nicolas Cellier
<nicolas.cellier.aka.nice@gmail.com> wrote:
> Exactly, every specialized stream has its specialized API and/or specialized
> implementation.
> File streams don't even have a name, because they need not to.
> You can browse XTFileReadStream and XTFileWriteStream, you won't find such
> thing.
> The file has a name, the stream does not need any.
> Before adding anything to a stream, ask first, why am i going to need this?

I agree with what Frank said, but not your suggestion that:

> File streams don't even have a name, because they need not to.
> If it really need it, the application certainly can retrieve the name from a higher level object (a
> FIleReference, FileDirectory or whatever).

because doing that means the FileStream is no longer
fully-encapsulated. �And now for the same method to support a
non-FileStream stream, what will be passed as the new FileReference
argument? �nil? �So the code went from stream-delegation to
case-logic.

This is why organic growth happened in the original Stream hierarchy
-- because it was "needed", not random. �Not strict, yes, but not
"random" either.

One final thing to consider about selector "uniformity" is how it can
negate the ability to effectively trace code (via senders and
implementors). �Wow, how many senders of #next...?

Stream-composition is cool, though, and I understand that to be a
benefit of the stricter API.



> 2013/11/13 Frank Shearar <frank.shearar@gmail.com>
>>
>> On 13 November 2013 16:48, Chris Muller <asqueaker@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I know nothing about Xtreams but, IMO, this obsession with sterility
>> > borders on mental illness.
>> >
>> > "All sort of un-needed complexity?" �That's overstating it a bit,
>> > don't you think?
>> >
>> > So you must really feel stressed that ALL Object's, in fact, have a
>> > #name, huh? �I admit this seems to push the limits but...
>> >
>> > what's the point of having any kind of different streams at all then?
>> > It's the _differences_ between them that makes composing them useful.
>> > Compression, encryption, filtering, sockets, files, circular, etc.
>> > You think you'll be able to do all that and get away with all of them
>> > having exactly the same API?
>>
>> They don't have the same API. And they shouldn't. And that's Nicolas'
>> whole point. A Stream does not have a name (nor should it - what's the
>> name of the compressed output of an audio stream from your
>> microphone?). A FileStream can extend this API, and that's fine. But
>> keep that out of the Stream API.
>>
>> So Nicolas is arguing that _difference_ should be reflected in the
>> API. File streams have names, but generic streams do not.
>>
>> As it happens, Xtreams takes a very disciplined approach to this. Some
>> streams have positions, and so you can go back. Some can't. This is
>> reflected in the API. This is good.
>>
>> > IMHO working around that, passing extra objects around, sounds more
>> > stressful than letting a stream on a _file_ know its filename..
>>
>> Mu. Streams have no names. File streams have names.
>>
>> frank
>>
>> >> If it really need it, the application certainly can retrieve the name
>> >> from a higher level object (a FIleReference, FileDirectory or whatever).
>> >
>> > How does that solution allow uniformity in stream-using code?
>> >
>> > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Nicolas Cellier
>> > <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Yes, a Wrapper would provide the legacy API.
>> >>
>> >> And yes, the name of a stream should better not be part of the API.
>> >> Most stream don't have a name, and adding such API adds all sort of
>> >> un-needed complexity.
>> >> It's an internal detail that can eventually help for reporting error if
>> >> accessible, but nothing more.
>> >>
>> >> If it really need it, the application certainly can retrieve the name
>> >> from a
>> >> higher level object (a FIleReference, FileDirectory or whatever).
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> 2013/11/13 Chris Muller <asqueaker@gmail.com>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:31 AM, Nicolas Cellier
>> >>> <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> > It's just a matter of selecting a strategy. I've proposed two:
>> >>> > A) create a wrapper class for legacy Stream compatibility selectors
>> >>> > B) create extensions for Legacy Stream compatibility selectors
>> >>> > My preference goes to A)
>> >>>
>> >>> By wrappers you mean the Xtreams are the innards doing the work and
>> >>> the wrappers providing the legacy API?
>> >>>
>> >>> This would be a great way to test Xtreams.
>> >>>
>> >>> > The legacy support MUST be minimal (next nextPut: nextPutAll: peek
>> >>> > upTo:
>> >>> > ...), otherwise we will import all the cruft in Xtream and would go
>> >>> > back
>> >>> > to
>> >>> > our starting point...
>> >>> > Once the minimal support written (a few hours should be enough), we
>> >>> > should
>> >>> > gradually switch each every legacy Stream usage -> Xtream.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > An area which require more work is those Streams that have mixed
>> >>> > conventions
>> >>> > (one portion is interpreted as text, another as binary).
>> >>> > In theory that's easy, we just have two streams and they both wrap
>> >>> > on a
>> >>> > low
>> >>> > level binary stream, but that means we have to be very cautious with
>> >>> > buffers
>> >>> > and caches.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Another area of work is usage of ugly selectors like name (we try to
>> >>> > access
>> >>> > the file name from the Stream API, arghh). Those usages are bad and
>> >>> > require
>> >>> > a rewrite.
>> >>>
>> >>> Are you saying a FileStream knowing its #name or #filename is bad?
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>