Declarative Foreign Function Binding Through Generic Programming

Foreign function interfaces are typically organised monolithically, tying together the specification of each foreign function with the mechanism used to make the function available in the host language. This leads to inflexibile systems, where switching from one binding mechanism to another (say from dynamic binding to static code generation) often requires changing tools and rewriting large portions of code. In contrast, approaching the design of a foreign function interface as a generic programming problem allows foreign function specifications to be written declaratively, with easy switching between a wide variety of binding mechanisms — static and dynamic, synchronous and asynchronous, etc. — with no changes to the specifications.