Scheme language standardization process
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/15/2011 07:17 PM, Grant Rettke wrote: > Hi, > > Based on discussions on the wiki it seems that FFI is clearly out of > scope of the standard because everyone does it differently. That said, > it is important enough to be discussed in the first place. > > Is the role of the standard simply to recognize it's importance and > rationale for not finding a common api? Or is the lack of a common api > simply a reflection of the fact that there is not one? The problem is not simply that "everyone does it differently." The problem is that insofar as implementations are different and the environments upon which they are hosted are different, there is no possible way for "everyone" to do FFI the same way. It is not sensible to suppose that a system where the operating system runs on top of a JVM ought to do FFI in a way similar to a system where the operating system runs on raw hardware. It is not sensible to suppose that a system where it is possible to have different threads operating in the same memory arena (such as Windows or Linux) ought to do FFI in the same way as a "secure" Operating system in which there is no interprocess communication except serial communication over ports, such as military OS's based on the Bell-LaPadula model, etc. It is not sensible to suppose that a system which represents strings as Tries of UTF-16 character buffers ought to do FFI regarding strings in the same way as a system that stores strings as arrays of UTF-8 characters. Nor is it sensible to suppose that in a computer where the OS regards text as an array of fixed-length strings with an implicit linefeed between each string (such as some portable devices) FFI ought to be done in the same way as in a computer where the OS regards text as an array of characters and a linefeed is just another character (such as UNIX). and so on. Bear -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJOw4VJAAoJEAOzWkqOibfNKfgH/3jI6qZoUT8HrvhYu97hJviR smUEdmW8NKf7s6t6675NjFHPXmw+/WczFhj6R+p8kqpGbsuaL8LK7kf6YIw88HLl wI0oZwBL6Iy1Ceq8v8pDTYL17zhtCxSVoGYqEG8NbV4IH1iHEP57oTMqr7XswWUt ST4N0H0rQY2kL2ovBv1amO7VFWKGxNpjxXyYxwSXGv0pMqXGz/WVl44zluZ5kpjG CjeSxp9nMOElH7Oe1g3ZRYhtMkM44+cCPq0+L4tu8Loj8TvWl2fgWJl+sjKxfL+6 kIlhhFDIINQ+wwY8JaYehWExdLjU27xvF7eX5uly2DfzARVDwAtv9RdUTTQ9nfM= =r92w -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Scheme-reports mailing list Scheme-reports@x http://lists.scheme-reports.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scheme-reports