Re: thick? thin? binding

["chris.danx" <spamoff.danx@ntlworld.com>]

"Immanuel Scholz" <news@kutzsche.net> wrote in message
news:aeqjst$96ip3$1@ID-100557.news.dfncis.de...
> Hi,
>
> I read through 1 and a half Ada book and still doesnt catch what "thick"
or
> "thin" binding mean...

A binding is an interface to external code (something that's not written in
Ada and/or which you have to import to use) like win32, OpenGL or a data
structures library written in fortran or C.

A "thin" binding is a 'one to one mapping to Ada of whatever interface the
foreign program provides'(1).  The Win32 binding for GNAT being a good
example, it's just a one to one mapping to the win32 api and makes you pity
C programmers :(

A "think" binding is more abstract, providing a nice 'Ada-like view of the
foreign program'(2).  They're the lovely bindings like GtkAda and Gwindows
which use object orientation, tasking, or anything else found in Ada to
provide a nice, neat interface for ppl to use (you almost don't need to know
what the underlying program looks like).


Chris

(1) & (2) Wheeler, Ada 95: The Lovelace Tutorial
          p174, section 16.3