sockets development discussion

[Paul Dreik]

Hi,
there have been some recent changes to the octave socket package and I
wanted to share my thoughts and get some feedback.

1)
backwards compatibility.
I think the sockets package should work not only for the latest stable
release but also the second latest and possibly older, if it is possible
to do without much trouble.

2)
use int instead of a user visible class
the sockets package has an octave type. I think that just complicates
the code for no added value.
returning an int which is the underlying file descriptor would be easier.
if one wants to keep extra information connected to each socket, that
can be done internally with the already existing static map. a
socket_info() function could be added to get that extra info.

I believe there was some discussion about this a long time ago
http://octave.1599824.n4.nabble.com/Explanation-of-Octave-operator-overloading-tp1640167p1640177.html


Paul Dreik
sockets package maintainer