[cffi-devel] pushing ":cffi" into features?

[Jack Unrue]

On 12/20/05, Surendra Singhi <efuzzyone at netscape.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>   Right now :cffi is not pushed into the *features* list, rather
> :cffi/no-long-long is.
> Is there any reason why this is done so?
>
> Because of this I am not able to write code which can conditionally depend on
> the presence of cffi, for example `#+cffi (do-something)'.

Hi Surendra. I hope my perspective might be useful.  In my case,
I have decided to concentrate on using CFFI, instead of trying to
keep native FFI layer code around. My gut feeling is that this is
low-risk.

I figure that if I run into a problem, I've got the option of writing
my own temporary shim to solve the problem in such a way that
the conditionalization for each Lisp implementation is hidden.
Then see about submitting a patch (which I am certainly not
saying *you* need to be reminded to do, just that this is part
of my rationale); in any case, I have confidence that a real
problem in CFFI could be addressed pretty quickly.

Thus, pushing :cffi onto *features* doesn't have any value
for me.

> I don't think conditionally compiling on `cffi/no-long-long' will be a good
> idea because it is something which might not be present in the future.

I think cffi/no-long-long is not intended to advertise that CFFI
is available, but really is specifically saying "be advised that CFFI
doesn't support a long-long type on this target FFI API".

--
Jack