Re: Questions about OPEN

[Charles Hedrick <HEDRICK@RUTGERS.ARPA>]

On the DEC-20 it would certainly be better to maintain the distinction
between filename and stream.  A common strategy for an editor is to
write a new copy of a file with a temporary file name, close it, and
then rename it on top of the original.  This minimizes the probability
of damage in a crash.  One would prefer to use the same JFN for this
entire process.  A JFN is a small integer that is a handle on a file.
If you keep the JFN active, you are sure that nobody else is going to
rename the file out from under you or do anything else nefarious.
This is easy if all of the operations can be done on streams.  My
feeling is that the distinction makes sense on some OS's, and on 
others causes no harm (other than extra code), so it should be kept.
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