Re: Embeddinator-4000 begetting an Ada-cross-platform future?

["Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net>]

 Alex wrote:
> the resulting Api is a thin layer over the top of each of the winRT classes
> (each implemented as a tagged type) 

Oh, thank goodness!  Thank you very much!  Kenny Kerr's usage of value instances as type-ish stand-ins for types will likely be the cause of criticism/ridicule of C++/WinRT once its usage increases outside of Microsoft.  (Microsoft has a track-record of ridicule with 3 prior iterations:  1) Stanley Lippman's managed C++ (adding COM semantics intrinsically to C++ object model), 2) Herb Sutter's C++/CLI (C++ divided by CLI: grafting on C# semantics via ^-syntaxed not-quite-C++ C++-ish/C#-ish language strewn throughout C++, hence the pejorative “divided by” moniker), 3) C++/CX (C++ divided by CX:  analogous grafting of weird add-on language but for processor-native machine code instead of CLR), and now 4) weird not-types used as stand-ins for what the human brain thinks of as types hence again a grafted-on thing that doesn't feel at all like C++ (or any other strongly-type language's very-in-your-face type system).  Even if there exist downsides in your approach (e.g., a little more runtime overhead due to the tags' indirection), keeping the types as first-class citizens will be worth it.

> Still a lot of work to do with mapping winRT generics to Ada.

It appears that Kenny Kerr's work in C++/WinRT also is incomplete in that area, among others (e.g., Rx and Ix reactive & interactive extensions).  I believe these areas are deemphasized in C++/WinRT because they are deemed to have ISO C++ analogues to utilize instead (e.g., the standard library; RxCpp).  Do you really need to get the mapping of WinRT generics to Ada for an initial release of your WinRT-to-Ada binding generator?  I guess that begets the more-fundamental question:  how do you envision releasing your WinRT-to-Ada binding generator?  Open-source?  Proprietary commercial product?