[Vm-dev] mantis http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=7349
Bert Freudenberg
bert at freudenbergs.de
Thu May 7 15:44:10 UTC 2009
On 07.05.2009, at 17:38, Andreas Raab wrote:
> Igor Stasenko wrote:
>>> It makes absolutely no sense to say "oh, we'll all just look it up
>>> and then
>>> somehow it's going to magically work". Version information is
>>> *critical* if
>>> you want to play things together in the long term - it has allowed
>>> us to
>>> have a very smooth ride for a very long time in this area and I
>>> wish Squeak
>>> would have more of that in general.
>>>
>> Taking a function pointer by name, is nothing more than enumerating
>> the VM capabilities.
>> Take a look at OpenGL extension mechanism. Do they have to change the
>> version of OpenGL each time they want to add new functionality? No.
>> You can simply ask the library about support of certain capability -
>> and depending on answer decide what to do.
>
> Yes, OpenGL is a great example. Because what the OpenGL consortium
> does is moving extensions into core functionality, increasing the
> version number of OpenGL so that clients know they can rely on a
> documented and stable API. Exactly my point.
>
> I have no problems with a named lookup mechanism in addition to a
> core interface. In fact we have one, it's ioLoadFunctionFrom. It
> solves a useful problem, namely that of how to support entry points
> where you don't know whether they will be available in the future or
> if it's only for use in this one version. But it's not a replacement
> for a documented core API.
+1
But back to the original question - do we want to change the plugin
API for 4.0 VMs?
- Bert -
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