[Larceny-users] preliminary xlib bindings for Larceny

[Eduardo Cavazos]

> Eduardo Cavazos wrote:
> 
>> Anywho, they're good enough to run the test program below.

Felix Klock wrote:

> Fantastic.  I was able to run your test program on my Mac OS X laptop 
> after I changed the X11 library code path to refer to
>   (foreign-file "/usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.dylib")

Excellent! Thanks for testing it!

I've converted the code into an R6RS library for Ypsilon:

     http://proteus.freeshell.org/xlib.sls

Yoshikatsu Fujita (Ypsilon implementor) provided this compat file:

     http://proteus.freeshell.org/xlib-compat.sls

So hopefully a similar approach can be taken for Larceny. I.e. the
'xlib.sls' body can remain the same accross implementations. I say
"body" because of course the imports will vary.

> I may play around with the interface a bit more; for example, it might 
> be convenient for XQueryResult to return multiple values.  Or maybe I'll 
> leave that alone.

Feel free, but I have a suggestion. This applies to our handling of
OpenGL api's as well.

When it comes to interfacing to C libraries, I recommend this general
approach. Make a library which is a one-to-one mapping onto the C
library. This library is helpful for folks who know the C library and
need to "naively" port some C code to Scheme for their pointy haired
manager (or advisor...).

Next, layer a library on top of that which provides an idiomatic
interface to the library.

Do not mix the two steps. :-)

Just my advice.

For an example, take a look at how Jazz Scheme provides it's OpenGL library.

The library 'jazz.graphic.opengl.foreign.gl' has definitions like this:

(define glClearColor (c-function (GLclampf GLclampf GLclampf GLclampf)
void "glClearColor"))

And the idiomatic interface is in 'jazz.graphic.opengl' which provies:

(definition (gl-clear-color red green blue alpha)
   (with-gl-error 'gl-clear-color
     (function ()
       (glClearColor red green blue alpha))))

I'm also involved with the Factor programming language project. This is
general strategy we take there also.

So in other words, I'm all for making a "scheme-ish" interface to Xlib.
But let's share a common substrate across all the implementations and
build the idiomatic library on top (which can also be shared). Same for
OpenGL.

So for example, for Larceny's case I'd offer a (opengl ffi) library
which is the low level one ported from Ypsilon. Then layer your
high-level one on top of that and call is (opengl). That's where we
stick all the nice combinators and macros to make opengl more convenient
to use. Same for xlib, i.e. (xlib ffi) and (xlib).

Ed