[Openmcl-devel] FFI stuff, C++, wxWidgets

[Hamilton Link]

I'm sending a shout out to Larry Pells, but if anyone else has a dime's 
worth of opinion on this feel free to chime in.

A while back Larry was having some UFFI stuff lock up when he was 
interfacing with C++.  In the last few years, several things have 
changed to make me think about an openmcl/C++ interface: (a) the 
lintel/macintel port of openmcl looming on the horizon, (b) my 
discovering that wxWidgets is bundled with Tiger and is nicely 
cross-platform on linux, (c) me having to learn MFC doc/view stuff and 
use VC++ to do stuff professionally (harsh, I know), and (d) Gary 
saying there's a standard C++ ABI now.

Gary mentioned that someone might already have figured out how to get 
C++ and openmcl talking, and reviewing past email Larry seems to have 
been doing callbacks as well as presumably calling into C++, all using 
UFFI.

For Larry... How much of a pain was all that, and what were the issues 
you had to deal with to make it work (if you can share)?  Is your 
solution available to other openmcl users that might want to do C++ 
interfacing, and how much would have to be done to wrap something other 
than the libraries you were calling?  Also you were doing this for, 
what, Qt?  Do you think there would be more issues talking to wxWidgets 
or do you think it's a mostly-solved problem?

Also, for discussion by the people on the list... while I like the ObjC 
bridge and the IDE isn't all that bad, the IDE might be better done 
with wxWidgets, because it would port to openmcl/linux---also, I have a 
nagging suspicion that if someone were to throw money at the problem it 
would be sensible for a professional GUI developer to start with a 
blank slate than revise the existing IDE.  Anyone who has actual 
experience with wxWidgets feel free to chime in on their experiences.  
Are any customers of MCL out there that would consider moving to 
openmcl if it had an IDE, willing to fund or collaboratively fund the 
development of one?

Happy Holidays,
hamilton