agree at carltonfields.com wrote:
> Lex writes:
> 
> >On the other hand, there are primitives intended for low-level OS
access
> that Squeak doesn't understand.  For instance, adding pipes or Unix
> domain sockets.  These kind of primitives tend to be pretty short, and
> furthermore they aren't able to run under in Smalltalk.  For these,
it's
> probably *easier* to just write the C code directly.  The primitives
are
> unlikely to actually run in Smalltalk, anyway, so you have the same
> edit-compile-restart cycle.
> 
> The downside of this, of course, is that such primitives must then be
linked 
> directly into the Smalltalk VM, numbers must be assigned, and so
forth.  Using 
> named primitives compiled into shared libraries (DLL's, etc.), you can
write 
> plugins that require no "hard-wiring" apart from the smalltalk glue
you write, 
> making it possible to build modular facilities that can be easily used
by 
> anyone, even if they do not own a C compiler.
> 

Well, you *can* write pluggable primitives straight in C--I've in fact
been doing so a little.  But maybe this is a deprecated way to do
things?


Lex