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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: Call for ACE participation
Date: 1996/10/17
Message-ID: <1996Oct17.073937.1@eisner>#1/1
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references: <1996Oct8.194417.16693@ocsystems.com> <1996Oct15.161554.1@eisner>
 <dewar.845433836@merv> <1996Oct16.112853.1@eisner> <dewar.845506966@merv>
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organization: LJK Software
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-10-17T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <dewar.845506966@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Larry said
> 
> "Yes, I certainly want thin bindings in many cases, but I would think of
> a binding which mirrored OS calls but described them with different
> derived numeric types for "window number" and "command number" as
> still being "thin".  I have to do as much work to use it, but more
> of my mistakes will be automatically detected."
> 
> Now I am puzzled, it is not the case that the thin bindings we are
> talking about avoid the use of derived numeric types. In fact one
> discussion we have had with respect to one of the bindings was
> precisely whether or not to use derived types in a particular
> situation, and we concluded that the attempt to use derived types
> was flawed because it generated so many annoying and unhelpful
> conversions.
> 
> The issue of when and when not to use derived types is an interesting
> one, but I don't see it has anytyhing to do with bindings being thick
> or thin!

I do not believe I was the one who introduced the word "thick" to
this thread.  I was merely looking for a baselevel of using derived
numeric types (something which takes human effort beyond what can
be done with mechanical translation of bindings from lesser languages).

The method you describe (try for derived types, but skip them in
cases where they cause trouble) seems appropriate to me, but was
obviously not used in the Ada bindings I have needed so far.

Larry Kilgallen