hidden buffers for async (was Re: Threads in emacs implementation)

[Nic Ferrier]

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