Re: [gtk-list] Re: I want to understand

[Michael Babcock <mbabcock la creatureshop henson com>]

"Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" wrote:
> 
> Ionutz Borcoman <borco@borco-ei.eng.hokudai.ac.jp> wrote,
> 
> > Robert_Gasch/PeopleSoft@peoplesoft.com wrote:
> > >
> > > 4) Using C++ as the base would make other language bindings more difficult
> > > to write (??)
> > C++ mangles names in the object code generated, while C not. I have
> > understood that this is the reason why bindings to C code is simpler to
> > made. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> Basically, every language has a foreign language interface
> to C, very few (does any?) have one to C++.  Moreover, for a
> language binding it is not sufficient to just call some
> external functions.  You have to convert data values from
> the representation of one language to the other, you have to
> get memory allocation and deallocation right, and so on.
> All this is a pain when binding to C, but I wouldn't even
> think about it for C++.

That's why you write your interfaces in IDL and use CORBA standards.
Writing your library in C is not the only way to make it language
neutral. See, for example, Fresco.

--
Michael Babcock
Jim Henson's Creature Shop - Los Angeles
mbabcock@la.creatureshop.henson.com