coapp-developers team mailing list archive

[Garrett Serack <garretts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't think we can do C++ and only bind to MSVCRT; hence C being the selected language.

Plus, I think it's a good idea to keep it lowest-common-denominator.  :D

G

From: coapp-developers-bounces+garretts=microsoft.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:coapp-developers-bounces+garretts=microsoft.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Trevor Dennis
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 4:43 PM
To: Elizabeth M Smith
Cc: coapp-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Coapp-developers] Code?


On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 5:38 PM, Elizabeth M Smith <emsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:emsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
On 5/17/2010 7:36 PM, Olaf van der Spek wrote:
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 1:23 AM, Elizabeth M Smith
<emsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:emsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>  wrote:

As we discussed during the summit and is mentioned on the wiki:

Ah, found it.


Few dependencies
Fast
Small
Binding facilities for most high level languages are common

The ability to tie a C library into anything and everything is the biggest
reason to use C over C++, using and binding to C++ libraries (especially in
most languages - they tend to be written in C) is a real headache - actually
beyond a headache, most times it's just a recipe for failure.

C++ can do C bindings as well, can't it? Our bindings should certainly be C.
Doesn't C++ share the other advantages?

Olaf

What?  I mean binding coapp to other higher level languages primarily written in C.  Perl, Python, PHP, Lua, D etc.

and if we write it in C - yes a C++ binding would be easy as well.

Thanks,
Elizabeth Smith


In case Olaf means writing the library in C++ itself instead of C, only functions defined outside of a class can
be defined with a C binding.  As soon as it's in a class it must use C++ bindings and all the name
mangling takes effect.  Once that happens, connecting to the classes from the other languages is
almost impossible.

I've seen people try to to create bindings to a C++ library and it usually involves writing a middle C layer between the
other apps and the C++ library.  No point in doing that if we can just write it in C in the first place.

--

Trevor Dennis