Re: [Scheme-reports] What is the role of standardization in things like FFI?

[David Banks <amoebae@x>]

On 16/11/11 09:41, Ray Dillinger wrote:
> The problem is not simply that "everyone does it differently."
> The problem is that insofar as implementations are different
> and the environments upon which they are hosted are different,
> there is no possible way for "everyone" to do FFI the same
> way.

Despite the valid objections raised here, common cross-implementation
FFI layers (only for C) have been created for R6RS with a reasonable
degree of success.  See Nausicaa and Spells.  These APIs prove to be
perfectly functional for a large majority of library binding tasks,
though the internal implementation may be rather hairy.  I believe there
would be absolutely no harm in specifying a minimal subset of these
rather low-level APIs as a WG2 library, all of which are optional anyway.

In my opinion it's probably too early for JVM and CLR, given that there
are only a few active implementations on these platforms.

Unfortunately these APIs have already been rejected for WG2, so this is
a shout into the void.  ;)

Cheers,
David


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