[armedbear-devel] Seamless ABCL / Java integration proposal

[Blake McBride]

I have an idea for a largely seamless integration method for ABCL with Java
that involves changing the ABCL REPL.  It would work as follows.

1.  From within Java or lisp, have the ability to register any number of
Java classes with ABCL.

2.  When executing lisp code of the form (fun args ...), try running the
code as regular lisp code as it does now, but if it fails to find the lisp
function and has at least one argument then:

3.  Examine the arguments and, through reflection, try to find a Java
method (with the same name as the lisp function) in one of the registered
Java classes that matches the number and types of arguments and execute
that.  So, it would auto translate (in effect):

    (fun arg1 arg2 arg3 ...)

into Java

    arg1.fun(arg2, arg3, ...);

4.  There must be better auto-translation of lisp <-> java data types to
include arrays and lists in order for this to work.  So, in other words,
when executing a lisp function passing a lisp array as one of the
arguments, the Java reflection query will see a Java array argument type.
 It will also be auto-converted when making the call.

5.  There must be some sort of cacheing mechanism to avoid redundant Java
reflection calls.

6.  This mechanism must take into account and correctly handle similar Java
method names with different number and types of arguments both within and
across different classes.  It must also handle the fact that methods may be
declared in Java superclasses.

7.  This functionality can be enabled or disabled through some (Java and/or
lisp function).  Off by default to avoid troubles.

Adding this functionality would make ABCL a plugin-and-go extension to
Java.  Any code could be written in Java or
lisp immediately without complicated and cumbersome interface/translation
code in most cases.  There would be no huge initial hill to climb (to
create all the interface code), and the usage would be natural and
uncomplicated.

Thanks.

Blake McBride
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