Sven Panne <Sven_Panne@BetaResearch.de> wrote,
Manuel wrote:
[...] * I want to get v1.0 of the spec fixed. We are really only in bug fix mode for quite a while and only the finalizer problems held us back from finishing the spec.
That's OK and I understand your motivation. Let's finish v1.0 first.
* I am sure there are plenty more useful FFI-related libraries. However, the initial plan was to define basic functionality on top of which more elaborate schemes can be implemented. We need to draw the line somewhere. [...]
But I strongly disagree here: The initial plan was to make a very small, but sufficient addition to the language (=> foreign import/export), which can be implemented easily on existing systems. In this respect, we have reached our goal quite elegantly IMHO.
The related libraries are a totally different beast: Minimality is *not* a design goal here.
Ok. I agree that my statement here was too simplistic. Our design principle with respect to the libraries is certainly harder to state.
In a nutshell: Let's include as many useful "patterns" in the next FFI spec versions as possible!
Nevertheless, I am pretty sure the idea wasn't to include as many libraries as possible. We wanted a "reasonable" set to cover the standard idioms. The question is were to draw the line between the FFI spec and a general set of generally available libraries. I completely agree that we should have large a pool of libraries running on all systems as possible. But some of these can just be shared by being the same library rather than multiple implementations of a standardised library. Anyway, wrt FFI v1.0, we seem to agree that we leave Pools out and first gather than experience with them. Cheers, Manuel