CLR/C# was: Re: [PD-dev] Re: file library WAS: [folder_list]

[Thomas Grill]

Hans-Christoph Steiner schrieb:
>
> I lot of people like python, so it would be nice to have python object 
> support built into Pd, and also, CLR/C#, java, etc. via Thomas' loader 
> patch.
>
i'd like to say a few words about the status of clr/c# in PD, since it's 
in CVS but not a word on the list until now...
Davide Morelli and i have been working on it for a few months now, but 
it's still not really usable yet.
The goal is to be able to use CLR classes as a full replacement for 
traditional C externals with comparable performance and memory footprint.
There are a couple of problems to achieve that goal:
1) mono keeps on crashing on OSX because of a name clash of the 
GetCurrentProcess function name which is both present (but with 
different meaning) in one of Apple's system frameworks and in mono's Win 
API emulation. I filed the bug but the mono developers don't take it too 
seriously... it may last a while until this is really resolved.
2) there's a similar issue on linux, although Davide hasn't been able to 
nail it down yet
3) it's really hard to bring together the PD-style (and memory-saving) 
registration of methods in the class domain and use the speed of CLR 
method delegates (which are bound to a class instance). Unlike Python 
and Java which are really slow concerning the transition from native 
code to byte-code machine, CLR can be much faster because data and code 
can be directly mapped to the native side of the external.

Once these issues have been resolved i'm very positive that CLR/C# can 
be a full-featured and performant cross-platform alternative for PD 
externals (including the dynamic scripting possibilites of IronPython).

greetings,
Thomas

-- 
Thomas Grill
http://grrrr.org