Thanks Jimmie Thanks to kick our asses like that! I would love to have that too in Pharo. Stef
Thanks,
I have no knowledge of either the knowledge or the challenges involved in using external libraries in Pharo or Squeak. I have no knowledge of FFI/Alien or using C/C++/C# or compilers.
However, this is my experience in Python.
Navigate to the directory containing the script makepy.py or if it is a part of your Python's sys.path, execute the script. It generates a Python module which is on
It pops up a dialogue which prompts you to select the library you wish to interface.
Then to use in a script simply import Dispatch self.mylib = Dispatch("MyLibrary")
This will expose all the functionality of the library.
All provided by the python win32 extensions. It was very successful for my needs. I do not know what limitations it may or may not have.
Very easy for non-expert programmers. I would love this level of ability to interface outside libraries in Squeak. But I have no idea the effort required to automate the generation of a class or classes which interface the external library.
In my particular instance this is obviously for a Windows library. I don't know if Python has anything comparable for Linux or OSX.
In this particular instance, Python was enabling for me, for which I am grateful. Otherwise I might be stuck writing my app in VisualBasic. But despite my gratefulness, I spend as little time in Python as possible. Despite Python not requiring a compiler, I really hate going to an editor and writing code. Then to an interpreter to run code. Hit my stacktrace. Go back to the editor. Reload the module in the interpreter and run again, and if that doesn't succeed due to the reload not really reloading the new code, open in a new interpreter. Ugh!!! Where's my Smalltalk. Give my live object system. :)
Jimmie