Native Windows VM extension

goran.hultgren at bluefish.se goran.hultgren at bluefish.se
Fri Mar 22 08:47:23 UTC 2002


"Andreas Raab" <Andreas.Raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> Karl,
> 
> > There is also the issue of Squeak's interface to other operating 
> > systems' user interfaces:
> > 
> > For example, what if I were to do the same thing with the Macintosh 
> > or PocketPC or whatever?  In the end, we'd have as many ways of 
> > interfacing as interfaces which also seems counter the Squeak spirit.
> 
> Certainly not. If you've been long enough on this mailing list you may
> remember the "Cheese" project which was an approach to integrate native
> widgets on OS/2. It got abandoned but (for those who were able to try)
> it was most certainly an experience to look at and try to understand how
> this maps to their preferred platform.
> 
> Many other things (most noticably the OSProcess stuff) have started out
> on a single platform. That isn't to say that it'll stay that way if the
> interface is well enough designed.

And still, even functionality confined to a single platform may be
useful to someone.
IMHO all additions to Squeak are welcome in and by themselves.

> > However, as with Frank Sergeant's suggestions, providing your 
> > assistance and experience could help give Squeak a generic model for 
> > interfacing with whatever  operating system it is running on.  Now 
> > wouldn't that be great!
> 
> You are aware that there are already two such models are you? You can
> either write a plugin that interfaces your operating system or you can
> use the FFI in order to call functions from your OS or any other shared
> libraries.

While on the subject - I posted some questions titled "State of FFI and
cousins?" (included below), if you have the time Andreas - could you
perhaps answer them briefly? I am increasingly interested in digging
into that stuff but would like to know what's "ahead of me" a bit
more... :-)

As I understood it, Frank Lessers work includes functionality for
"events/callbacks/whatever" back into Squeak - otherwise it can't
possibly work, right?

> Cheers,
>   - Andreas

Cheers, Göran

-----
Howdy all!

I just wondered if anyone could sortof "sum up" our current ability in
Squeak to interface
external libraries. As far as I know we have:

* FFI - Foreign Function Interface. A general mechanism for calling
dynamic libraries. Has some
form of "smarts". I believe there was some work in making the FFI even
"smarter"? Or perhaps it
was plugins... 

* Plugins - Our current main mechanism for interfacing with libraries
and also writing performance
critival sections in Slang. Faster than FFI but also more coding
required.
The Pythoneers (and others) have access to Swig (I think) etc. Since
this is not really my area
(my C is rusty and my plugin/VM knowledge is purely theoretical sofar)
perhaps someone could set
me straight on a few questions:

1. Are we missing key pieces? How about callbacks? That has been
discussed recently I think.
2. Is it easier/harder to "glue" an external library to Squeak than to
(for example) Python?

Thanks in advance guys, Gšran



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