Re: swig guile2

[Tristan Colgate <tcolgate@gmail.com>]

On 21 March 2011 20:32, William S Fulton <wsf@fultondesigns.co.uk> wrote:

> Are you proposing a 2nd SWIG Guile module in addition to the current module?

  The code as it stands is exactly that, a new module. I have worked
under the assumption that breaking the existing guile support was
taboo.

> I am no guile user, so can't help on the Guile side. The guile SWIG module
> is suffering neglect and doesn't seem to work with modern versions of Guile
> - the test-suite fails for me. Only very rarely are there Guile queries on
> the SWIG mailing list, so suspect it isn't used much. Would it make sense to
> drop the older Guile interface altogether and just use Guile 2?

  The existing guile module support the gh_ interface and the older
version of the SCM interface. It also doesn't work with guiles current
GC. It's entirely useless for the current version of guile. I had
assumed that since SWIG still ships it, enough people care about
legacy guile support to not want it broken.

  I've only just started looking into getting the test-suite working
with my guile2 work, but I do intend on getting it to the point where
it all passes.

  For me personally, the old guile module is no longer useful.
However, guile 2.0 is not widely deployed in distributions yet and
that may take some time.

> BTW, there
> is the swig -scm option for guile 1.6+. So there seems to be GH and SCM and
> now guile 2 API... does that sound right that there are so many C interfaces
> or is your Guile 2 interface just SCM?

  The -scm support works by mapping the old SCM interface to the GH
interface.. Almost all the scm_ calls used by the existing guile
module are deprecated. I tried implementing and -scm2 option within
the existing module but it was more awkward than I could bare.

  I'm not sure that there is going to be enormous support for this
within the guile community either really. Guile 2 ships with a new FFI
and using that is, obviosuly, of more interest to them. I've struggled
wrapping legacy APIs with it though and SWIG really is rather good.

-- 
Tristan Colgate-McFarlane
----
  "You can get all your daily vitamins from 52 pints of guiness, and a
glass of milk"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enable your software for Intel(R) Active Management Technology to meet the
growing manageability and security demands of your customers. Businesses
are taking advantage of Intel(R) vPro (TM) technology - will your software 
be a part of the solution? Download the Intel(R) Manageability Checker 
today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devmar