Stef, I have read that Alien is not very good at calling functions - I have *no* idea whether that is fair, but we should check before adopting it. If it is indeed poor at them, I recommend using FFI until we or its maintainers can fix Alien.
Also, whatever we include should work on windows, mac and Linux. Alien seems to be getting close to read on Linux, but Laurent reported ugly crashes when trying to actually run it. That would not be good for a supported platform. Bill -----Original Message----- From: pharo-project-boun...@lists.gforge.inria.fr [mailto:pharo-project-boun...@lists.gforge.inria.fr] On Behalf Of Stéphane Ducasse Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 3:05 PM To: Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] FFI in 1.1 Probably. There were some discussions that alien will be integrated / working also for the windows vm. So we will see which one I will let people with more experience telling that to us. Stef On Apr 25, 2010, at 9:26 PM, Mariano Martinez Peck wrote: > > > On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Stéphane Ducasse <stephane.duca...@inria.fr> > wrote: > > > > yes communication with C library. so this is just a tool too. > > > > > > > > Exactly. It is a tool. Not a dev tool in my opinion.In such way, SqueakDBX > > is also a tool. A tool to persist in a relational database. > > Mariano FFI/ALIEN is ***REALLY*** important to get the possibility to > call and write code in smalltalk as mentioned by john so this is more central > (closer to core) than openDBX or refactoring browser. > Look at lua... why lua is cool because he can be embeded seamlessly in > C and call C. So if we do not put pressure on FFI to support callback well or > ALIEN then we will stay this language that has problem to interact with the > outside world. > This is why having FFI in pharo-dev is important. We should be able to call > mac native menu. > Of course we should pay attention that we rely too much on C library > but the world is getting more complex and writing everything in > smalltalk is also costly. Not FFI/ALIEN can reduce our dependency to C > compilation and C-writing so this is already an important step. > Am I clear? > > > Yes, and I agree. However, that was not the discussion. I agree FFI is > important. I don't care to add it to PharoDev 1.1 if you agree with that. > But I STILL think and that's what I was discussing in the last mail, is that > FFI is NOT A DEV TOOL for me. > Anyway...forget this little discussion. > > In summary, should I add FFI when I start to build PharoDev 1.1 ? > > Cheers > > Mariano > > Stef > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project _______________________________________________ Pharo-project mailing list Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project _______________________________________________ Pharo-project mailing list Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project
