Re: CPAN-type thing: specifications, wishes, thoughts?

[Andreas Rottmann]

Andreas Rottmann <address@hidden> writes:

>> I was thinking that most of this project could be written in Guile.
>>
> I think all of it can be written in Scheme, except for some low-level
> code interfacing with things like libzip (if ZIP is adopted as a package
> format).
>
Let me restate: *all* of it can/should be written in Scheme, as Guile
2.0 has a dynamic FFI which allows to build language bindings without
touching C code; however, there are some considerations when using the
dynamic FFI:

- You are essentially encoding the ABI of the library you are making a
  binding for into your Scheme code.  If the ABI changes, you need to
  adapt your Scheme code.

- Due to a bug in libltdl[0], it is currently not possible to specify
  the full path (including ABI designation, e.g. libzip.so.1 instead of
  libzip.so) when loading the shared library.  This means the shared
  library can change ABI without resulting in the Scheme code to fail in
  a clear way.

[0] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guile/2011-03/msg00138.html

Regards, Rotty
-- 
Andreas Rottmann -- <http://rotty.yi.org/>