[cffi-devel] Re: [fetter-devel] Quick CFFI update

[Kenny Tilton]

Luis Oliveira wrote:

> On 5/jul/2005, at 03:52, Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>> Man, I am /really/ curious about the Actual Landscape. Here is one 
>> gap: has the new killer CLisp FFI been ported to the Mac OS X version 
>> yet? Though in that case i would not consider this a gap in 
>> Hello-C/CFFI, since the old CLisp FFI was pretty weak and pretty much 
>> asked for trouble (such as being left out of portable FFI projects).
>
>
> Heh, guess what, not only does clisp's ffi work on OSX (at least the 
> CVS version), but it also passes all CFFI tests: 

A little more precision is required. CFFI does not go thru an 
implementation's exported, documented, high-level FFI, it goes thru 
lower-level hooks used by that implementation's exported. documented, 
supported FFI. Youse guys seem to have started referring to the 
low-level, unexported, undocumented, unsopported, internal hooks as 
"CLisp's FFI".

So whaddyawannado to make communication possible? Possibly we have three 
FFIs: FFI/hi, FFI/lo (low-level but exported/supported), and 
FFI/internals (unsupported).

I might think from your report and James's that CLisp had finished 
porting its FFI/hi to OS X, but since CFFI does not go thru anybody's 
FFI/hi I am guessing you mean a usable FFI/lo or FFI/internals was 
always there to support CFFI. This, btw, would be a strong argument for 
CFFI: even if CLisp is closing the FFI/hi gap, the fact remains that 
CFFI would have made that effort unnecessary.

>> Come to think of it, that raises another question: does CFFI's 
>> high-level API rock as well as CLisp's new FFI on win32 and Unix? I 
>> am thinking of things like a lambda form being a Lisp callback from C.
>
>
> Not yet, I guess that's a goal though. At least for me. 

I am not sure where I come down on this as a requirement. Without it, 
some Lisps' native FFIs have at least some clear added value over CFFI. 
But I had to offer a poor man's subsitute when I ported Cells-Gtk from 
CLisp FFI to UFFI, using a scintilla of new syntax and some diabolical 
macrology, and I do not feel much of the power of lambda qua callback 
was lost.

-- 
Kenny

Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film

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