On Wednesday 31 October 2001 08:42 am, Stephen Pair wrote:
I think it would make Squeak quite good if we kept a plug-in/FFI-class directory on the Swiki. A list of libraries Squeak hooks up with. Show that Smalltalk *can* play well with others.
I think this is a great idea. It is really easy with FFI to interface Squeak with external libs (though there are some enhancements to FFI that would make things even easier). Of course the ideal solution is to rewrite the external lib in Squeak, then pluginize any key algorithms to achieve performance, but using an external lib is the next best thing.
Having a central place to keep track of external libs that people have wrapped in Squeak would be great.
But FFI was removed from the Squeak distribution by SqC who feel that it's a security hole and would be a problem for their network distribution of active content.