Re: Re: State of function pointers

On 8 Feb 2005, at 13:10, Kevin Rosenberg wrote:

> Ben wrote:
>> i didn't use function pointers, there's a little C code to make
>> everything happy.  function pointers aren't well supported by all
>> lisps, most notably allegro.
>
> Yes, that's the important point. Since not all major Lisp
> implementations support function pointers, than UFFI can not
> *universally* support function pointers.

I would say that the position UFFI should take is to support as much 
functionality as possible (like function pointers), and to state up 
front "this functionality is not as portable as the rest of UFFI, if 
you want maximum portability you should <specific workaround>. The 
implementations that have trouble with this are <whomever> and if you 
want better support for it, it's in their hands."

Even if you set up different systems, so that it's not available just 
by loading uffi.asd, to add another level of awareness. Or something. 
Or, even if not, at least stating in the docs _why_ function pointers 
have not been added.

Ben: thanks for the pointer to Elephant. I'll dig around in there.