How to open a device for exclusive access?

[Ben Scott]

On 7/15/07, Bill Sconce <sconce at in-spec-inc.com> wrote:
> A first-blush hope of a Pythonista might be to write a small
> program which handles data going to and from the device, and
> have upstream processes which need the device communicate with
> that program ...

  Such a program is called a "device driver" in most circles.  :)

  I've often wondered why, after 30+ years of *nix, there's still no
good way to handle locking/contention in the filesystem.  Linux, KDE,
GNOME, etc., have shown that the *nix community is willing to jettison
"Unix tradition" when there's an obvious gain to be had.  But it seems
like file(ish) locking is one of the holdouts.

-- Ben