Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
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From: vfr750@netcom.com (Will Hartung)
Subject: Re: STOP ME before I CODE in C again!!!
Message-ID: <vfr750DpEHK0.Epv@netcom.com>
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References: <HJSTEIN.96Mar28125504@blinky.cpaf.com> <315CC818.167E@td2cad.intel.com> 	<ABEL.96Apr2151026@blinky.netvision.net.il> <MCMANR.96Apr3100121@nytrdc19.eq.gs.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 17:50:24 GMT
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mcmanr@nytrdc19.eq.gs.com (Russ McManus) writes:

[ Automatic glue generation reference deleted ]

>This would be nice, but I think we could get by without it if there
>was a standard C FFI.  The glue routines for a particular library would
>only have to be written once, then they could be redistributed as neccesary.

That would seem like a sound idea to me. Having a standard like
c-slib, that may take some hand tuning etc to port to a particilar
platform/Scheme interpreter, but once done would hopefully provide the
interface necesary.

An automated tool would be nice so that you can point it at
/usr/include, and let it run amuck, finally tweaking the 10% that
would need to be done.

It seems clear that there are enough significant differences between
the published Schemes that would hinder pure cross-platform
portability, but I'm not experienced enough to say whether that is
purely a library issue or not.

Also, despite the standard C library, it seems that there is still a
lot of work needed to get a moderate size C application portable. Just
watching Perl's configure script chat with the machine is evidence
enough for that. Just trying to compile much of anything on my UnixWare
box is more brutal evidence. But there is also a large amount of
lore-based expertise on porting applications. Enough so that we have
the help of things like the GNU autoconf system to help people port
their code.

I'm really new to the Scheme world, but I'm wondering how many folks
have been putting the effort into TRYING to make their Scheme code
portable. SLIB has a lot of battle experience behind it, but I don't
know about other applications. Maybe it wasn't practical before, but
until goal of portability (and its ramifications) are committed too,
the Scheme apps and the compilers won't be moving any time soon.
-- 
Will Hartung - Rancho Santa Margarita. It's a dry heat. vfr750@netcom.com
1990 VFR750 - VFR=Very Red    "Ho, HaHa, Dodge, Parry, Spin, HA! THRUST!"
1993 Explorer - Cage? Hell, it's a prison.                    -D. Duck
