In my effort to port Perl's Net::Ping module to Ruby, I noticed that Ruby does not define the various "proto" functions (e.g. getprotobyname, etc). No problem - I'll write an extension.
While looking at the man page for getprotoent, I noticed and read about the setprotoent function. I get it. What I don't get is *why* you would ever want to use it. Do I really need to keep a file descriptor open at a particular location so that you can have an ounce of added functionality? I say if you need that functionality, add it yourself, 'cuz there ain't nuthin' special about this file.
Quite frankly, it smacks of some propeller head who happened to need this "feature" for one of his own programs and consequently decided to add it to the "standard" lib. Then again, maybe there's something I'm missing. Wouldn't be the first time.
