[coyotos-dev] IDL compatibility

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Sun, 2007-06-17 at 12:08 +0200, Valerio Bellizzomi wrote:
> On 16/06/2007, at 18.53, Charles Landau wrote:
> 
> >To the extent that Coyotos and CapROS have similar objects, it would 
> >be very good if programs that use those objects were compatible 
> >across the two systems. Both systems use IDL, so differences in the 
> >details of how you invoke a capability are probably not an issue.
> >
> >Because Coyotos packages are all under the namespace "coyotos", 
> >procedures to call an object such as the spacebank will have names 
> >like "coyotos_spacebank_alloc". In CapROS the corresponding procedure 
> >names begin with "eros" (or perhaps "capros"). So even if the 
> >semantics matches, the procedure names of every key invocation would 
> >have to be changed to move a program from one system to another. Not 
> >exactly a good compatibility story.
> >
> >Is there a better way?
> 
> Use a "system" namespace, we would have "system_spacebank_alloc"
> everywhere.

Yes, calls to the spacebank methods in coyotos will begin with coyotos_.
This is intentional and necessary. The two systems do not implement
identical interfaces, and it is therefore not appropriate or desirable
for them to use the same method namespace. Quite the contrary: if there
is to be ANY hope at all of cross-compatibility, it is *imperative* that
these name spaces not overlap.

 PLEASE do NOT switch to something like "system_".
-- 
Jonathan S. Shapiro, Ph.D.
Managing Director
The EROS Group, LLC