<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; "><span><div><span>First thank you all for your answers. Suffice to say I have installed FFI from source.squeak , Win32 refuses to install for me(I am on MacoOSX if that is of any importance [Lion]). </span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>The argument that "we dont include FFI because we dont want to encourage people to use it instead of smalltalk" is something that does not convince me. FFIs exist included in implementations of all languages I have programmed with Python , Java, Common lisp (ccl) , Free Pascal etc . I was a python developer so far, ctypes which is the interface of python itself is used exactly because ( though its way slower than writing C extensions ) it allows coders to stick with python and make code easier to port across platforms. In my
experience coders dont use FFIs just for the fun for it, because they are not fun , they can be a pain in the hat. Also a coder preferring FFI from the comfort of the amazing smalltalk debugger is something I have a very hard time imagining. People use FFIs because well , they want to acess a functionality that the existing libraries just do not offer and that functionality exist on OS level anyway that will require some mangling with C. So no I dont think FFI will ever reduce the portability of squeak or that FFI libraries will start to pop up like mushrooms. </span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Its not such an issue for me because : a) I can provide an image that will have FFI included b) unlike python squeak distribution system (monitcello) not only does not suck but seems to work quite well. </span></div></span></div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; "><br></div><div><span>"<span style="font-size:
12pt; "> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">Many applications do not need FFI" that could be said for a lot of smalltalk libraries already included with squeak. For example I have not seen many apps in squeak source make use of etoys ( I love etoys by the way and one of the reason I prefer Squeak from Pharo and is potentially necessary for a project I am making). I dont think that is a good excuse as well. Libraries dont need to be super popular to be included in a language implementations they are included to offer a more "complete" experience to the code as long they provide "basic" functionality and not something that is highly specialised. </span></span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">In any case I asked the question not because I want to force the inclusion of FFIs but because its the first time in last decade or so that I use a language implementation that does not come included with an FFI and tham
made me curious about the reason behind this. In any case I love what you have done with Squeak, I really enjoy using it and even though it lacks documentation in several areas it really is easy to understand what is going on because of the overall architecture and the elegance of tools like inspector, and browser. Let me state all the above is my personal opinion and not an effort to play it smart or being rude, just geniune curiosity. </span><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "> </span></div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; "><br></div> <div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; "> <div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Bert Freudenberg <bert@freudenbergs.de><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> "ma.chris.m@gmail.com" <ma.chris.m@gmail.com>; The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org> <br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Friday, 17 August 2012, 21:21<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [squeak-dev] Why FFI is not included with latest squeak ?<br> </font> </div> <br>On 16.08.2012, at 22:28, Chris Muller <<a ymailto="mailto:asqueaker@gmail.com" href="mailto:asqueaker@gmail.com">asqueaker@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>> Many applications do not need FFI, so it including would add<br>> unnecessary (in many cases) bits to the footprint.<br>> <br>> FFI is a one-click install from SqueakMap, which can be accessed<br>> programmatically via the
Installer class, which is included with<br>> Squeak.<br>> <br>> HTH.<br><br>Right. Also, if we included it by default, people might think it is okay to use for providing basic functions. If FFI calls started to creep into the basic image we would lose the big advantage of platform independence. <br><br>- Bert -<br><br>> <br>> On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 12:16 PM, kilon <<a ymailto="mailto:thekilon@yahoo.co.uk" href="mailto:thekilon@yahoo.co.uk">thekilon@yahoo.co.uk</a>> wrote:<br>>> I was wondering why I need to install FFI and why it is not included by<br>>> default. Any programming language I have used included at least a single FFI<br>>> with it in its implementations or at least something similar.<br>>> <br>>> Is there a specfic reason why its not included ?<br>>> <br>>> <br>>> <br>>> --<br>>> View this message in context: <a
href="http://forum.world.st/Why-FFI-is-not-included-with-latest-squeak-tp4644264.html" target="_blank">http://forum.world.st/Why-FFI-is-not-included-with-latest-squeak-tp4644264.html</a><br>>> Sent from the Squeak - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.<br>>> <br>> <br><br><br><br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>