From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d1533431e7e9d2eb X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Marin D. Condic" Subject: Re: Nontrivial examples of C interface with Ada Date: 2000/05/27 Message-ID: <3930178D.93CA1EDB@quadruscorp.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 627977970 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <392EABE5.D7F5D285@quadruscorp.com> Organization: Quadrus Corporation X-Sender: "Marin D. Condic" (Unverified) X-Server-Date: 27 May 2000 15:48:01 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-05-27T15:48:01+00:00 List-Id: tmoran@bix.com wrote: > I would agree that including a Simplex LP solver along with elementary > matrix operations would be a confusing mix of conceptual levels. But > Windows is already conceptualized at a fairly high level. For instance, > there's a call to ask the user the name of a file, and then open it. The > user may browse around, the request may look at files with only certain > extensions, etc. If that's a single call, then I feel there should be a > single call to open a socket. Windows itself presents a highly variable > level of abstraction, and smoothing that seems to me a legitimate and > useful function of a thick binding. Heck, for some purposes a *really* > thick platform independent binding is desirable and that's certainly > pretty far from "just the interface to some existing body of software". > It presents an interface that lets the programmer easily do things that > would have been hard with a really thin binding. I'm not sure you were getting my point. It was simply this: When do you stop calling it a "binding" and start calling it a "subsystem" or "application" or something else? CLAW, IMHO, is not a "binding" - it is not a simple, one-to-one connection to underlying OS calls. It provides its own design and implementation decisions about what a windowing environment should be and, while this may parallel Windows concepts to a large degree, it provides significant functionality in its own right. Hence, it is not a "binding". (If a binding gets thick enough, it stops being a binding?) Win32ada *is* a binding because it makes no attempt whatsoever to extend or limit the capabilities of the Win32api. If all I do is juggle the parameters around a little bit so that there is still a one-for-one mapping between my code and the Win32api, but my code provides types, etc., which are of an Ada flavor, I'd still think it was a "binding" - albeit, now a "thick" binding. If someone used such a thick binding to build an application or subsystem (such as CLAW) *that* would be the time to try to present to the programmer a truly Ada-ish design. Its just that at that point, its no longer a "binding", is it? MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ======================================================================