On Apr 26, 2010, at 12:06 AM, Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote:

> 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.

there are no such alien maintainers. There are us.
> 
> 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: [email protected] 
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stéphane 
> Ducasse
> Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 3:05 PM
> To: [email protected]
> 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 
>> <[email protected]> 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
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