- The reality. Was: Hardware and DLLinterfacing in BlackBox

From: [at]} <Rex>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:03:42 -0600

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Marc, Wojtek, Fyodor,
        Thanks for your amazingly speedy and cheerful replies, and I really appreciate your efforts. I hope I wasn't complaining (well, maybe I was), but this just seemed like a serendipitous time to summarize some of the problems.

        But it's not so much a question of my programming. It's also a question of the larger community. The language and framework are great, and they deserve more attention than they are getting.

        Since I happened to have the source code for Opal on my computer, I took a quick look. It's not bad, and I assume it would come close to compiling on BB. I can't be sure whether there might be some low-level stuff that's being withheld -- hopefully not. And the miserly 25-line, 80-space limits are simply hard coded, and could easily be changed, it appears. Unfortunately, the source is copyrighted, but, -- who knows? The Files module lacks such amenities as WriteInt, etc., but that too can be remedied easily, I think. I have to be very, careful here, not to get myself into something. :-) BB really lacks simple console I/O, and this could be very useful.

        I have written I/O libraries, and I don't want to do it again! Mine looks something like Opal, only much more crude, more limited, ad hoc and patched over the years. So I think it would be really nice if basic libraries like that could be included. I've got a job to get done, and I'll bet a lot of other people do too. In fact, I think it's the difference between success and oblivion.

        Wojtek, thanks. That's quite a meal. There's a lot of demonstration there, including a very good demonstration of the use of the the framework. I'll have a look at Campbell's stuff too. Here's to software that doesn't crash, leak, or burn.

Best wishes,
Rex Couture

--- BlackBox
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Received on Sat Feb 19 2005 - 00:03:42 UTC