<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules --> <!--X-From-R13: Xnzrf Ivyfba <wjvyfbaNebpurfgre.ee.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 15:58:45 -0800 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 9810301847260V.22929@d185d1e96 --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 19981030141024.A22772#divcom,slimy.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:jwilson#rochester,rr.com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00603.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00605.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00602.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00682.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00604">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00604">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00604">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: James Wilson <<A HREF="mailto:jwilson#rochester,rr.com">jwilson#rochester,rr.com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 18:17:21 -0500</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> [Jon Leonard] >> >I don't want to use C++, because it doesn't have the object model I want. [James] >> can you elaborate? >More or less what I've said in other messages. You can't change the >implementation of a base class without (usually) forcing a recompile, you >can't query objects for what methods they support, you need to know object >interfaces at compile time. That sort of thing. okay. of these, only the last do I disagree with - not because you're wrong, but because I think it's a GOOD thing. That is, when I compile something in C++, I know that the compiler will tell me if I'm trying to invoke methods on objects that don't support them. The alternative would be to allow foo->bar () even if foo isn't known to support method bar (), and throwing an exception (or something) at runtime. This sounds like a nightmare of intermittent errors to me, but then I'm a big strong-typing fanatic. >You can do these things in C++, but you wind up doing it in parallel with >the C++ module hierarchy. Why not do it in a language-portable way? hmmm, yes, I mainly agree. This does raise the question, though, of _what_ languages and how. If C and C++ are to interoperate, this is straightforward and we can write the kernel in either one, object model aside. I am dubious about the possibility of having other languages cooperate without some heavyweight abstraction such as CORBA or Gamora's buses. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily against such a thing, I'm just concerned about efficiency. What are people's thoughts on this? Should we try to come up with something "language agnostic", as the Casbah project (built on Gamora - see Nick's post of his communique from the Gamora guy for a pointer) is attempting to do using Scheme? There were some interesting messages on their mailing list about troubles they were having with language agnosticism, which I will attempt to find again and post to mud-dev. >> did you see my proposal for how this could be done very easily in C++? the >> mapping is pretty straightforward. > >The recent one with the modules full of declarations, not the earlier post >about using extern "C"? I've read all of the messages on MUD-Dev about >DevMUD (usually several times -- it's hard to remember everything reading it >only once.) > >It looked plausible, but my primary point is that if we're going to invent >a different model to deal with dlopen sorts of issues, we should invent one >that works for C, C++, or nearly any other language. I prefer to write >modules in C, and if someone else writes in C++, we should interoperate. there's nothing in what I proposed that would prevent that. Just write a C++ stub for your C functions and export that as a named interface. Your scheme using void function pointers and mangled names requires C++ modules to write a series of C stubs for their methods, so neither scheme is more general. Perl, Python, Java etc all can bind to C++ as well as to C, so there's no difference there. But I think we're putting the cart before the horse. We need to step back a little bit and talk about goals. Are we looking for language agnosticism? Anything with C/C++ bindings? Distributed processing? I think these questions need to be answered before we can talk about intermodule protocols. James </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00682" HREF="msg00682.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Jo Dillon <emily#thelonious,new.ox.ac.uk></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00602" HREF="msg00602.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Jon Leonard <jleonard#divcom,slimy.com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00603.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: META/ADMIN: CVS for DevMUD security</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00605.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00602.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00682.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00604"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00604"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00579" HREF="msg00579.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, The Arrow <a href="mailto:arrow#trelleborg,mail.telia.com">arrow#trelleborg,mail.telia.com</a>, Thu 29 Oct 1998, 17:56 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00583" HREF="msg00583.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, Jon Leonard <a href="mailto:jleonard#divcom,slimy.com">jleonard#divcom,slimy.com</a>, Fri 30 Oct 1998, 00:48 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00584" HREF="msg00584.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, James Wilson <a href="mailto:jwilson#rochester,rr.com">jwilson#rochester,rr.com</a>, Fri 30 Oct 1998, 02:14 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00602" HREF="msg00602.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, Jon Leonard <a href="mailto:jleonard#divcom,slimy.com">jleonard#divcom,slimy.com</a>, Fri 30 Oct 1998, 22:18 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00604" HREF="msg00604.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, James Wilson <a href="mailto:jwilson#rochester,rr.com">jwilson#rochester,rr.com</a>, Fri 30 Oct 1998, 23:58 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00682" HREF="msg00682.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, Jo Dillon <a href="mailto:emily#thelonious,new.ox.ac.uk">emily#thelonious,new.ox.ac.uk</a>, Mon 02 Nov 1998, 10:17 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00696" HREF="msg00696.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, James Wilson <a href="mailto:jwilson#rochester,rr.com">jwilson#rochester,rr.com</a>, Tue 03 Nov 1998, 03:18 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00592" HREF="msg00592.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, Niklas Elmqvist <a href="mailto:d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se">d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se</a>, Fri 30 Oct 1998, 13:15 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00596" HREF="msg00596.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: DevMUD: Inheritable modules</A></strong>, Jon Leonard <a href="mailto:jleonard#divcom,slimy.com">jleonard#divcom,slimy.com</a>, Fri 30 Oct 1998, 17:20 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </ul> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>