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From: tmoran@acm.org
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: thick bindings, was Re: Vulkan is here!
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2016 06:28:30 +0000 (UTC)
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Date: 2016-02-20T06:28:30+00:00
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>The important reason for having access to some low-level binding is so that
>one can directly translate examples into Ada. The idea is that a medium
>binding preserves that (one uses the same objects, same parameters [possibly
>better typed], same subprogram calls), but makes those calls more sensible
>Ada code, letting the compiler provide more help to the programmer.)

  As I recall, there were a lot of Windows calls that did not work as
documented (or weren't documented completely).  A thick binding like CLAW
works around and thus hides such things.  A mechanically produced binding
wouldn't do that.
  For instance, I have a mechanically produced thin, and hand made thick,
binding to the Google Earth API.  Several years ago Google changed the
meaning of some of the parameters to an important function.  The thick
binding can check the API version and do the right thing - the thin binding
can't.