PixInsight Forum (historical)

PixInsight => Wish List => Topic started by: dmcclain on 2016 January 23 15:53:06

Title: FLI - Foreign Language Interface
Post by: dmcclain on 2016 January 23 15:53:06

Really wish we had access to the outside world from within PixInsight. The scripting language is very weak, and intentionally restrictive, since it comes from the land of web programming. (You don't want web pages to execute arbitrary code. But we are scientists in charge of our own destiny here.

If not a full-blown FLI, as found in ML, Haskell, or Lisp, then at least a (scriptable) way to reach outside executables.

Title: Re: FLI - Foreign Language Interface
Post by: dmcclain on 2016 January 23 17:05:27

AHA! I just found ExternalProcess in the Object Explorer. Took a bit of fiddling to figure out the proper syntax, but at least I'm launching and waiting on an external executable. This is a start....

Title: Re: FLI - Foreign Language Interface
Post by: Andres.Pozo on 2016 January 25 01:05:14

Quote from: dmcclain on 2016 January 23 15:53:06

The scripting language is very weak.

There are not weak languages but weak programmers  ;) ;) ;)

In any case, you can write your own processes using C++ and the PCL library. Using this framework you have access to nearly 100% of Pixinsight and you can also access the outside world without limits.