[Cuis] 'Internals' questions

[Juan Vuletich]

Hi folks,

(below)

On 1/27/2015 11:06 AM, Pierce Ng wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 04:13:46AM -0500, Phil (list) wrote:
>>> Anyway, cool to hear about someone with a want to do database stuff with
>>> Cuis!
>> Someone has to do it! :-)
> I wrote an SQLite wrapper *for Pharo* using NativeBoost. It is now part of
> PharoExtras on smalltalkhub.com.
>
> Not sure how well NativeBoost fits with the Cuis philosophy though.
>
> Pierce

The main objective of Cuis is to become your Dynabook. We don't want 
artificial barriers on what you can do with it. If you need to access 
existing external code, an FFI (like NativeBoost) is the way to go. For 
instance, ExternalClipboard.pck.st (in the main Cuis repo) uses FFI to 
access the host OS clipboard in Windows. On the other hand, it is 
desirable, at least for the base image, to be completely portable and 
open for study and enhancement, like "Design Principles Behind 
Smalltalk". That's why there's no use of FFI in the base image itself. 
But on your own solutions, it is you who chooses the balance between 
these criteria and the convenience of calling existing and well tested 
external code.

So, here, the decision would be whether to port NativeBoost to Cuis 
(that would be a very welcome optional package!), or convert your code 
to use the classic FFI (that is already available).

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich