View source for ServerJS/Binary/C

:''See also: the [[/Show of hands/]] as well as the [[/Unpacking/]] and [[/Essay/]] portions which were removed.''
This proposal was written by Daniel Friesen as an alternative to the [[ServerJS/Binary/B|Binary/B]] proposal.

This proposal extends the Blob type that a number of existing Server-side JavaScript implementations use, and a Buffer type reflecting the StringBuffer/StringBuilder within Java.

This proposal has a Buffer instead of Binary/B's ByteArray. None of the prior art actually implemented a ByteArray as Binary/B proposes. Most implementations implemented a Blob type similar to Binary/B's ByteString, and any that implemented something called ByteArray actually implemented something more like a stream API based buffer rather than
anything remotely resembling an Array.

One goal of this proposal is interoperability between Strings and Blobs.  That is, like Binary/B, this proposal aims to permit a class of generic algorithms that can operate on both Blob and String through a generic intersection between their API's.  However, unlike Binary/B, this proposal avoids things that seem counter-intuitive, like putting .charAt on a Blob, a byte collection.  Instead, this proposal augments String with a .valueAt so that method can be used generically on both Blob and String and a Buffer system which works on either type.

This proposal is based off of API's drafted for MonkeyScript ([http://draft.monkeyscript.org/api/_std/Blob.html Blob] [http://draft.monkeyscript.org/api/_std/Buffer.html Buffer]).