Re: GC safety and return values

[Tom Lord <lord@xxxxxxx>]

    > From: tb@xxxxxxxxxx (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)

    >> The biggest issue in choosing between the two approaches, as
    >> far as I know, is the question of efficiency.

    > This is the part that gives me great pause.  I am made uncomfortable
    > by an FFI that determines, once for all, that a particular approach is
    > more efficient.  Even if certainly true for the computers and tools
    > available now, experience is that such judgments change over time.  

    > I'm getting a little Scheme reflex in my brain here: "don't
    > standardize until we *know* what the Right Thing is."

At least two efficiency issues, the variable lifetime question and the
extra space needed for mn_ref * values, are properties of C semantics
and the proposed interfaces, not of particular hardware.

I'm generally sympathetic to that reflex but overall, there's not a
huge lot of choice in FFI design.  I don't think a SRFI would be
premature.

-t