Re: emacs-dynamic-module in Emacs Git?

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Mon, 01 Dec 2014 08:45:53 -0500 Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> wrote: 

>>>> What do you think about the current modules?
SM> Haven't really looked at them yet.
>> It would be good if everyone did before it's merged. It's probably the
>> most important new architectural feature we'll see in the next release.

SM> Then I must have misunderstood.  We were talking about APIs, and AFAIK
SM> the new code doesn't really define an API (yet).  So "current modules"
SM> above seemed to refer to actual modules, not about the new Emacs-side
SM> code that hosts/loads those modules.

The branch defines both actual modules and the means to load and call
them. Currently they can call the Emacs core directly, so there's no
API. Aurélien was already asking how to define a global variable from
inside a module. Also modules can have a license and other metadata that
should be easy to obtain before loading them. So I hope the API is
settled to some degree before we merge.

IMHO the first API should be call-only and very simple:

* load: makes the functions available

* describe: list the functions, the module metadata (version, license,
  etc), and the loaded/not loaded state. Functions are passed as a
  struct with a name and 1-7 parameters; each parameter has a name and
  type (text, 32-bit int, or 48-bit float).

* funcall: call a specific function (this would be hidden from the ELisp
  code, which just calls the function by name)

Ted