Re: Thoughts on the recent ICFP contest

[tmoran@acm.org]

>   Ada.Streams.Sockets.Connect
>      (New_Socket => Server,
>       Address    => (127,0,0,1),
>       Port       => 5517,
>       Protocol   => Ada.Streams.Sockets.TCP);
  Claw, even the GMGPL version on adapower, has
  procedure Open(Socket     : in out Socket_Type;
                 Domain_Name: in     String;
                 Port       : in     Port_Type;
                 Timeout    : in     Duration := 30.0);
  procedure Open(Socket  : in out Socket_Type;
                 Address : in     Network_Address_Type;
                 Port    : in     Port_Type;
                 Timeout : in     Duration := 30.0);
>   Server_Request'Write (Server, Request);
>   Server_Response'Read (Server, Response);
  I'm not quite sure how high level this is supposed to be.  Claw has
  type Socket_Stream_Type(Socket : access Socket_Type'class)
    is new Ada.Streams.Root_Stream_Type with ...
so you can write
  userid'write(stream_access, "tmoran");
and I'm currently working on
  f : ftp.stream_io.remote_file_type;
  stream : ftp.stream_io.stream_access;
  ...
  ftp.stream_io.connect(f,"upload.attbi.com",userid=>"joe",password=>"secret");
  ftp.stream_io.create(f, ftp.stream_io.out_file, "test");
  claw.bitmaps.root_dibitmap_type'class'output(stream,pic);

> that 'Write on a 1000-byte array will, by default, perform one 'Write on
> each component of that array, amounting to 1000 'Writes. That means
> any time someone is interested in efficency, they end up having to make
> their own 'Write that calls Ada.Streams.Write once for each object that
> they want transferred efficiently. This is an issue for *any* stream,
> not just the one I'm proposing above.
  Agreed.  Anytime you make a data structure that needs to be read/written,
part of the job is to write the Data_Structure'Write etc. routines.  So
it would be nice to have an efficient String'Write, but I'm not sure how
much real work it would let you avoid.