[REBOL] Re: core, view, view/pro dand command
From: jan:skibinski:sympatico:ca at: 26-Nov-2002 20:17
Hi Daniel,
I can only guess why the external function call is not part
of the Core: it was not that cheap to implement it.
Let not the apparent ease of calling the OS shell functions from
the applications fool you. Unix for example is written in C, and
calling unix C-functions from a C-application is not a big deal indeed.
But when your aim is to provide seamless two-way
communication (and that includes callbacks) between
two different languages, such as Rebol and C, you are facing
a bunch of problems to solve, such as incompatible
calling conventions, incompatible data structures - generally
speaking - two incompatible sets of languages features.
To provide the above one starts with development of
something known as Foreign Function Interface, which defines
everything I signalled above - including marshalling from one
set of objects/features to another. And then, one chooses to
implement such FFI for a set of languages chosen - usually
just C. :-)
Best wishes,
Jan
Daniel Nicault wrote:
