From: Filip Spacek <spacek@geocities.com>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 15:52:40 -0500 (EST)

Re: libGGI3d -- ready to code?

On Fri, 19 Feb 1999 G. Gregory wrote:

> Hmmm, I still like the idea of an IDL interface to the modules. This way
> bindings can be made to any language we can find a compiler for. Way back
> in time I heard X11R6.4 was supposed to support IDL for its interface
> definitions. Did this ever come off. Once upon a time I had IDL to C and
> C++ without the ORB stuff compilers. Cant remeber where they came from
> though. They might have been OMG reference versions or somethimg.
> 
> But then again if you really do want a string, you could always use
> something similar to C++ name mangeling. void_int_long_float_drawtriangle
> for void drawtriangle(int,long,float).

Well, string seemed to be the best from the point of view of speed and
flexibility. But the way I see it just a simple C++ish name mangling is
not sufficient. What would be needed is a _description_ of the data
structure. For example how would one go about describing interface for a
BSP-tree rasterizer? (ok, some people may say that that is way to specific
to be in libGGI3d, but that is the beauty of libGGI3d -- it cannot be
bloated and also having the actual tree might help in some other parts of
the pipeline). 

This looks to me like an argument for IDL, the only problem is that all
that I know about IDL are those few bits I've read on this list. I'll have
to do some reading, but if it isn't as slow as some people suggest, then
this seems to me to be the best solution... (btw, anybody has a link for a
nice introductory article on IDL+CORBA?)

-Filip