Re: [j-devel] Embedding ABCL in a Java application

[Alessio S. <ale...@gm...>]

I've not studied the problem extensively, but it seems that for the
basic scripting API it can be done without modifying ABCL, by just
wrapping its Java API. However, I plan to add a little support on the
Lisp side to ease things a bit. This needs not to be part of ABCL, but
can be provided as a separate module; OTOH, nothing prevents adding it
to the ABCL codebase later.
However, I have not yet explored the more complicated parts of the API
(which are optional, but it would be nice to have them anyway), such
as support for compilation of scripts. From my first impression, I
think the API is general enough to still allow to get away with just
building things on top of ABCL. Of course, this comes with a little
performance overhead since ABCL uses its internal data structures,
while the API has its own, so a little marshalling/unmarshalling is
necessary, but I don't think this is a significant problem.

So, as soon as I make some decent progress (I work on this on my free
time, and I don't have much of it), I'll promptly tell you. And of
course, if someone wants to contribute (s)he's welcome - just drop me
an email. It's nice to see there's interest in the subject...

Cheers,
Alessio

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 12:27 PM, Ville Voutilainen
<vil...@gm...> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Alessio Stalla
> <ale...@gm...> wrote:
>> Anyway as I said, I have solved the problem in a satisfactory way. BTW
>> to get a feel of the Java side of ABCL, and looking forward to using
>> it as a scripting language for my application, I'm working on
>> integrating ABCL with the Java scripting API introduced with Java 6.
>> If that works out, it should make it easier for Java developers to
>> adopt and use ABCL as an extension language... if anyone is
>> interested, when the code is mature enough I'll be happy to publish it
>> on common-lisp.net or sourceforge, whichever fits it better.
>
> Sounds excellent, this has been in my plans for some time. Do you think
> it's possible to do this without modifying abcl at all, by building the Java
> Scripting support on top of abcl?
>
> I'd really like to see any progress you make with this, as soon as possible.
>
> -VJV-
>