From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Nic Ferrier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: hidden buffers for async (was Re: Threads in emacs implementation) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 23:34:50 +0100 Message-ID: <87is0oa35h.fsf_-_@kanga.tapsellferrier.co.uk> References: <6dbd4d0005060619227dd41364@mail.gmail.com> <87vf4oaft8.fsf@zemdatav.stor.no-ip.org> <87vf4oaao5.fsf@kanga.tapsellferrier.co.uk> <87ll5ka5j7.fsf@zemdatav.stor.no-ip.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1118270820 20297 80.91.229.2 (8 Jun 2005 22:47:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 22:47:00 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jun 09 00:46:57 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Dg9Hh-0007eT-1J for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 09 Jun 2005 00:44:30 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Dg9OU-0003Nx-P6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Jun 2005 18:51:30 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Dg9Lx-0001pp-6a for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jun 2005 18:48:53 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Dg9Lp-0001kt-Vn for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jun 2005 18:48:49 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Dg9Lo-0001iY-Pd for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jun 2005 18:48:44 -0400 Original-Received: from [80.168.156.78] (helo=owls-tree.tapsellferrier.co.uk) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA:16) (Exim 4.34) id 1Dg9FB-0000Or-Ks for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jun 2005 18:41:53 -0400 Original-Received: from [80.168.156.68] (helo=kanga) by owls-tree.tapsellferrier.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50 #1 (Debian)) id 1Dg97o-00073z-RS for ; Wed, 08 Jun 2005 23:34:16 +0100 Original-Received: from nferrier by kanga with local (Exim 4.44) id 1Dg98N-0004b0-Bx for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jun 2005 23:34:51 +0100 Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-Reply-To: <87ll5ka5j7.fsf@zemdatav.stor.no-ip.org> (Magnus Henoch's message of "Wed, 08 Jun 2005 23:43:24 +0200") X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:38385 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:38385 Related to the discussion about threads is the issue of making asycnhronous network programming in emacs easier. I wrote an article on how I tried and failed (for now) to write a good async IMAP library in elisp: http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk/nics-articles/imapua-failure.html One of the things that stopped me achieving this was that I felt I couldn't create a lot of buffers specifically for storing bits of in progress IMAP data. Something that would help a great deal is if one could create a buffer that was hidden, ie: it did not ordinarily appear in the buffer list and was not returned by a call to: (get-buffer buffername) maybe because the buffer wouldn't have a name. Anybody else think this is a good idea? Is it doable? I know this is all a bit blue sky and we're supposed to be focused on the next release... my apologies, but I think this is not a large change and I do believe it would help with async a lot. Nic