I've just now put up An Illustration of Perl Objects with C APIs http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/inline/illustration/
in which [...] a toy PPM-format image class is created and then extended (ToyPPM.pm and ExtendedToyPPM.pm). This child class runs just as fast as if it were part of a big C-language extension library, instead of being small and independent, depending only on ToyPPM.pm having provided a C API, and on Inline::C, to make use of it. [...] Punchline: At the cost of dealing with C API's and Inline::C, one can get the performance of a big monolithic C extension, while using only normal object-oriented practice. Objects which are nicely small, orthogonal, mixable, inheritable, and independent. With all the project- and community- level benefits which follow. My previous postings on this topic haven't drawn much response. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone cares. ;) While off in Ruby land, I noticed Brian is working on an Inline::Ruby. Neat. I've assorted inline hacks, including patches to allow Inline to be inherited from, to control the Inline::C++ code which gets parsed, to make Inline argument arrays composable, etc, etc. Let me know if anyone is interested. Mitchell Charity
