>>>>> "Sigbjorn" == Sigbjorn Finne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Sigbjorn> As part of H/Direct, we're going to support something
Sigbjorn> similar to JNI for the new Hugs/GHC system, see
Sigbjorn> http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/fp/software/hdirect
[...]
Sigbjorn> This document expresses the interface in terms of a
Sigbjorn> bunch of COM interfaces, but that's just one way of
Sigbjorn> packaging up the provided API.
What about a CORBA interface. CORBA is an open, vendor-independent
standard. There is a good open-source ORB, namely omniORB , see
http://www.orl.co.uk/omniORB/omniORB.html
omniORB is CORBA-2.0 and IIOP compliant and is GPL licensed.
The Berlin GUI project (an open-source, CORBA-based, next-generation
windowing system), see
http://www.berlin-consortium.org/
will use omniORB.
If there were a Haskell CORBA mapping, then Berlin components would be
accessible from Haskell, and Haskell could be used for scripting
Berlin components. This would be very helpful in GUI matters.
omniORB could be used as the ORB for a Haskell CORBA mapping. The main
work would be arranging generation of Haskell stubs and skeletons.
The Haskell Server page claims that one advantage of COM is that it
"ships for free with windows". This suggests that the existence of a
genuinely free CORBA ORB has been overlooked.
IMHO ignoring CORBA is cutting Haskell off from the open software
world (including about 7 million Linux users), and from those
who dislike/fear Microsoft or just want a non-proprietary standard.
If there were a CORBA interface to Haskell, I would be contacting the
Berlin developers and suggesting they try writing parts of Berlin in
Haskell (they can already use C, C++, Java, Ada, Lisp, Scheme, Perl,
Python etc. since these languages have CORBA mappings). What a pity.
I have just introduced CORBA to a large stock-broking software company
which I am consulting to. If Haskell had a CORBA mapping I might
eventually be able to persuade them to try writing some application
components in Haskell.
It would also help in the latter case if ghc were clearly and
unambiguously GPL. It is hard enough to introduce new technology,
without licensing concerns. I have already given up an opportunity to
use hugs in a commercial setting because of its "free for
non-commercial use" license. I used perl instead, since it would have
been politically impossible to introduce a suspiciously modern tool
that required contacting some academics to see if the use was
acceptable.
Tim
--
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T.R.BARBOUR Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Department of Computer Science
The University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria 3052
Australia
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