> 	foo* at pci?
> 	bar* at pci?
> 	bit* at pci?

> Traditionally we would then have [...]

> This is all well and good, except it's very messy in /dev, and tty
> allocation and assignment algorithms

_What_ tty allocation and assignment algorithms?  I don't know of _any_
case where real hardware ttys are "allocated and assigned" by software;
the notion don't even really make much sense for anything but a dialout
farm, and even there, all you need is one list of suitable ttys, much
like the one /etc/ttys provides for getty.

Of course, just because I don't know of any doesn't mean none exist.
Can someone cite an example or two?  I'd be interested.

> I personally think there's more benefit to doing this kind of name
> mapping in ttys, network interfaces (at least per physical layer
> type), audio interfaces, and anything else that's more likely to be
> used directly by ordinary (non-superuser) users,

Hm.  I can't see that benefit, unless you just happen to like it
aesthetically.  Could you explain in a bit more detail?

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B