Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to")

[Tom Lord]

    > From: address@hidden

    > I, for my part can see the furth bindings as a way to do generic
    > bindings towards other languages and providing at the same time
    > core extensibility. I am thrilled by the perspective.

Good.  The Furth "foreign function interface" (the API for adding new
types and primitives) is lifted straight out of Pika (though
simplified slightly).   It was designed for Pika after a series of
design debates among many interesting language implementors in which
we identified and solved issues such as:

        ~ how to avoid limiting GC strategies in the FFI
        ~ how to manage complex issues of flow of control
          (e.g., continuations or exception handling)

Many of its properties make it a good candidate for a universal FFI
that many languages can use.


    > Let's be honest. Binding C to most of the interpreters around
    > nowadays is a chore (even with the help of swig), especially
    > if you want to do callback and other non-trivial stuff. Only
    > tcl had (with its `all params are strings' + argc/argv model)
    > a very simple way to do it -- if you were willing to write your
    > C functions toward it (and at the expense of some performance).

    > I very much look forward towards furth, pika (and a *small*,
    > highly portable, acceptably efficient core VM which changes
    > little over time[1]). It's sorely needed in many places, one
    > of them being ./configure.

    > Go, Tom, go!

Thank you.  It's nice to know I'm not talking to the air, sometimes.

-t