Re: Merging EFLIB phase 1 and GNOME

[Johan Larsson <jola csd uu se>]

On 1 Jun 1998, Miroslav Silovic wrote:

> 1) in what ways can application that isn't written in Objective Pascal
>    profit from EFLIB? Note that language independance is one of the
>    high-priority goals for GNOME.

In EFLIB we are not very concerned about the implementation language
since modern object technology with, once fully incorporated, make it
possible for components to communicate even though they are written
in C++ or Java. How to do it? Have a look at this page:

ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/ilu.html

Language independence in a strong trend in the software industry
not only because people like different languages (I prefer Object-
Pascal because of the readability) but also because of its limiting
effect on reuse. Components written in different langauges rarely
interact without special design patterns or technologies. Therefore,
we need CORBA (and possibly DCOM compatibility, OpenDoc, and so on,
later).

> 2) Which ORB is EFLIB using? Would that ORB be useful for GNOME?

Today we have nothing ready with CORBA, but we have a meta-engine.
An advanced meta engine is the first step towards an ORB. We want not
only to support CORBA, but also any other pluggable object broker
subsystem. That's the idea with EFLIB: to plug in a subsystem that
suit the user.

> Umm, what advantages in OpenGL use are offered by EFLIB, in contrast
> to just calling OpenGL directly? (note that I'm talking about appls
> written in C or python, or guile, rather than in Pascal)?

Please direct this question to Johan Mattsson in the EFLIB crew. He's
the expert on 3D. Generally I can say that object-oriented framework
encapsulation have advantages: for example customizability and
flexibility. The 3D stuff is very new for EFLIB and has been running
as a separate project at University of Uppsala.

Yours Sincerely,
Johan Larsson


Sernanders vag 8:241, SE 752 61 UPPSALA, SWEDEN
Phn. +46-18-460046 - Email jola@csd.uu.se - WWW http://www.csd.uu.se/~jola/


Also,
  Remember to check out EFLIB, the free class
  library for every Object-Pascal programmer at 
  http://www.csd.uu.se/projects/EFLIB/ and
  ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/lang/EFLIB/.