Re: [MacPerl] Perl app framework

[Joshua Juran <wanderer@metamage.com>]

At 6:22 AM -0500 2000-03-10, Chris Nandor wrote:
>At 1.55 -0500 2000.03.10, Joshua Juran wrote:
>>Right.  But to be pedantic, it's not the access to powerful functions /per
>>se/ that's dangerous, but the unfiltered interface to them.
>
>I somewhat disagree.  First, MacPerl's toolbox modules are not entirely
>stable.  There are bugs.  So this is the first problem.  Second, even a

Yes, that's my point -- that the weakness lies in the interface MacPerl
provides to the Toolbox.  If you call MacPerl::Answer() (or for that
matter, AppleScript's 'display dialog'), you're indirectly using the
Toolbox, but it's not dangerous to do so.  (At least, it's relatively safe.
I *have* been able to reproduce a curious bug that occurs when MacPerl
calls StandardFile in the background.)  But the modules (or if not, then
MacPerl) could be modified to do things safely.

>filtered interface, without background inteligence, can be dangerous.  If I
>call MacWindow->new, I can still pass it bad arguments.  The danger is
>reduced, but not eliminated.

Agreed.  My desire is for background intelligence (of the sort that
automatically closes file descriptors and disposes memory) to be used to
manage Toolbox resources like windows, menus, AEDescs, etc.

>>I just had a different idea:  Instead of putting an application framework
>>into MacPerl, how about putting MacPerl into an application framework?  I
>>just happen to have one, and it's open source...  Here's how this would
>>work:  The app framework would have an embedded Perl interpreter, somehow
>>modified to provide an interface to the added functions.  Then some modules
>>would wrap around that, providing an object layer.
>
>This sounds interesting ... in case you missed it before, Matthias is
>working on the next version of MacPerl (based on 5.6, which, for Unix, just

Funny, I just read about that, following the recently-posted link to the
list archive. :-)

>entered the release candidate stage) and it may very well include a perl
>shared library which will ease embedding tasks, I believe.  So you may want
>to wait and see how that pans out (or volunteer to help him).

Very cool.  I think I will have more than enough to keep me busy simply
developing Pedestal, but I'll do what I can.

Josh

--
Joshua Juran                          Metamage Software Creations
=)                                         Tools for Wizards
wanderer@metamage.com
<http://www.metamage.com/>   * Creation at the highest state of the art *



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