binding thickness indicator, was Re: GNAT, OS/2, Libraries

[tmoran@bix.com]

I propose we use something analogous to house insulation 'R-values'
for indicating the thickness of a binding.  R1 would be the thinnest
possible, a la single pane window glass, like Tore's example of
interfacing to a C routine.  R50 would indicate such thickness and
insulation that, say, code using an R50 windowing GUI binding would be
portable across Mac, Windows, OS/2, and X-Windows.  R5 might be the
Ada flavor he mentions (type and range checked parameters, raise
exception instead of returning success/fail flag, etc) , but pretty
much still tied to the particular design, style, and widget offerings
of a particular system.  Clearly not an exact measurement, but
somewhat more specific than thick/thin.