Seems FFI is the main blocker for Slate now, right?

[Pupeno]

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On Sunday October 10 2004 13:12, Ken Causey wrote:
> > Yes, a developer ;)
[...]
> I can't make any
> promises that I will make much progress in the near future.
Who can ? ;)

> > Can anybody tell me some docs I could read to understand FFI ? Ken
> > Causey, I know you've been working in FFI, can you tell us what you've
> > done, and can you share it with us ?
>
> Well I can give you the links that others gave me:
>
> http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/autocad/lisp/ffis.html (Unfortunately this
> one seems to be closed off now, perhaps that's just temporary.)
>
> http://common-lisp.net/project/cmucl/doc/cmu-user/aliens.html
>
> And then I looked at Squeak's use and implementation of FFI somewhat.
Thanks.

> What I have done so far is only really the minimum to test my
> understanding of the use of dlopen/dlsym/dlclose and libffi.  What I
> have done will only work on systems that support these, certainly not
> including win32.
For those intrested in win32 compatibility, how should this be implemented ? 
by making a wrapper ober libffi and whatever win32 provides ?

> Right now there is no real library and simply as 
> single method that allows you to call a function of no arguments that
> returns an integer.  Not particularly useful.
Useful for learning.

> If anyone thinks they would still like to see what little I have done
> then let me know and I will get it together.
I'd like to see it... even if it's very basic[1]... in fact, being very 
basic[1], it's easier to learn.

> I see no reason that anyone should be waiting for
> FFI.  I think that even when it is completed FFI is a costly interface
> and should not be used for any library where speed is essential.  It is
> useful perhaps for quick prototypes and the occasional library call
> where a lot of time is spent in the call and the overhead of calling the
> function is not all that relevant.  That is not the case for a GUI
> library.  I'm of the opinion that such a library MUST be implemented as
> primitives as it simply would not be useful implemented via FFI.
I've mentioned this point to Lee Salzman on irc (since I remember you 
mentioning on irc) and he said that primitives are slow as well so we could 
just use FFI because it's better... I'm not trying to start a fight, just 
trying to figure things out. Comments ?
- -- 
Pupeno: pupeno at pupeno.com - http://www.pupeno.com

[1] NO!, not the language BASIC, are you crazy ? ;)
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