Proposal: ByteString based datagram communication (Ticket #1238 )

[Bryan O'Sullivan]

Robert Marlow wrote:

> My knee-jerk opinion is that the current use of HostName and PortID
> already assume IPv4 protocols such as TCP and UDP more than they could.

They have TCP baked in, but not IPv4.  I posted a patch yesterday that 
generalises the functions in Network to work with IPv6 as well as v4, 
and it required no API changes.

> Consequently, I think making the
> Network module more flexible for extension would involve getting rid of
> the current addressing scheme and implementing some new Address type
> which includes not just the address, but the protocol used.

I don't think there's much point in this.  The Network module is not 
especially well put together, but it's at least stable.  It would be 
more profitable to work on the network-alt package or something else 
instead of trying to remould the existing API, while breaking it in the 
process.

	<b