Language Bindings for Computer Graphics Standards

Standard user interfaces to the new graphics standards are being developed for Fortran, Pascal, Ada, and C, and will be entering the standards review process in the next year. One after another, and sometimes concurrently, these interfaces (bindings) will be circulated for commnent from the public. This article, written by two participants of the group developing the graphics language bindingns, describes some principles being used to generate these bindings. Comparisons are draw with examples from the various draft graphics language bindings to illustrate specific¿and in some cases controversial¿features. Major topics are the handling of standard language subsets, mapping algorithms for naming, appropriate data typing, mixed-language environments, error-handling methods, new versions of languages, and multitasking.