downcalls, fixed-sized ABI types

[Ty Young]

On 1/19/20 10:01 PM, Michael Zucchi wrote:
>
> Hi guys,
>

(snip)


>
> If you know all this information already, the ABI stuff just seems 
> redundant.  And the way the abi definitions are accessed also seems 
> counter to creating dynamic cross-platform code, at least without a 
> bunch of extra scaffolding.


ABI can be ignored if you want. ABI/ValueLayouts APIs were created to 
work around all the hard-coded byte sizes which could (potentially) 
cause bugs[1].


As I see it, unless you defensively hard code every platform type, it's 
impossible to write cross-platform code. There needs to be a way to 
determine the underlying running platform and to swap and compare 
layouts as well as a safe way to work with platform differences. That's 
basically what I'm trying to do in Crosspoint[2].


For something Number abstract class implementations that's easy because, 
well, they extend the Number class. For everything else? Not so much.


[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4dNRVWYaZI

[2] 
https://github.com/BlueGoliath/Crosspoint/blob/master/src/main/java/org/goliath/crosspoint/enums/PlatformTypeLayouts.java


>
> Thanks,
>  Michael
>