| XhyldazhK | usually FFIs are done to system languages |
| redwyrm | there are pretty much no other system languages |
| whaleofconfusion | but Java has a lot of libraries--what if Lisp acquired them de facto through an FFI to Java |
| rahul | whaleofconfusion: you're assuming that it should be easy to translate objects from random languages into lisp objects and vice versa, maybe |
| XhyldazhK | Zhivago: i have the dump at last... |
| whaleofconfusion | i'm sure it would be mind-numbingly hard, I'm just saying it would be nice |
| slava | a java ffi is not very hard |
| rahul | whaleofconfusion: which would make it mind-numbingly hard to figure out what is going on when you want to use it |
| slava | same for objective c a c++ ffi is virtually impossible |
| rahul | a java ffi is not hard if you don't want to translate data into comparable types across ffi boundaries |
| slava | i mean a direct interface to jni |
| rahul | instead of just keeping a reference to a foreign object well, that's not particularly useful. |
| slava | well it is, because one can build an abstraction on top |
| rahul | that's just a trivial usage of an ffi to C it's that abstraction which would be useful |
| whaleofconfusion | I think big libraries go a long way to making a language successful the bigger the libraries the more useful the language |
| XhyldazhK | i agree on that |
| twb | whaleofconfusion: no shit |
| rahul | depends on if the libraries are implemented well with a good API |
| whaleofconfusion | so that's why I think more FFI's to languages other than C would be a great thing |
| slava | its not like many languages are purposely built to have no libraries often its a question of manpower |
| whaleofconfusion | steal the other guy's libraries |
| rahul | lots of libraries which end up being useful to no one but the original author aren't a particularly useful asset to the language community |
| twb | whaleofconfusion: that's often more work |
| rahul | whaleofconfusion: and then do what to make the library worth using? |
| twb | Consider the hoops you need to jump through to use wxwindows in Lisp |
| foom | see, for example, all the broken SSL libraries for lisp |
| XhyldazhK | a lisp for .NET would automatically benefit from all .NEt libraries |
| hefner | libraries are overrated. the proper application of computing is random thought experiments that require no outside interaction whatsoever, right? =p |
| slava | a lisp for .net is not the same thing as a lisp with a .net ffi |
| rahul | XhyldazhK: no it wouldn't |
| twb | XhyldazhK: .net, or CLR? |
| XhyldazhK | CLR |
| eructate | ILU :) |