[Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Damien Guichard]

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Hi all,

Do you remember the Smalltalk "morale crasher #1" ?

http://www.bytesmiths.com/Publications/9701ArchitectsVersusCoders.html

A similar story happened to me.

When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been advised to renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a less obscure, more popular language".

- damien

my lego web page: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/alphablock/


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Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Erik de Castro Lopo]

Damien Guichard wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Do you remember the Smalltalk "morale crasher #1" ?
> 
> http://www.bytesmiths.com/Publications/9701ArchitectsVersusCoders.html
> 
> A similar story happened to me.
> 
> When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been
> advised to renunce lambdas because it would impede translation
> to "a less obscure, more popular language".

Since you are writing the code, you get to choose the language
and the features you wish to use. You also get to tell anyone
who disagrees to go jump :-).

Erik
-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
  Erik de Castro Lopo  nospam@mega-nerd.com (Yes it's valid)
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
"I ran it on my DeathStation 9000 and demons flew out of my nose." --Kaz

Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Matt Gushee]

Damien Guichard wrote:

> http://www.bytesmiths.com/Publications/9701ArchitectsVersusCoders.html

Unfortunately, I couldn't connect with this site, but I will venture a 
comment anyway. Since I know nothing about your project, I can only 
respond in the most general terms.

> When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been advised to 
> renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a less obscure, 
> more popular language".

And I imagine the same people who said that would also advise you not to 
use higher-order functions and variant types. Just sacrifice some of 
OCaml's most powerful features for the sake of compatibility ... or 
perhaps we should say (social) conformity. It might be a useful tactic 
in some specific cases, but as a general principle, if you're going to 
do that, why bother with OCaml at all?

Let's assume you had good reasons for choosing OCaml (people who use 
non-mainstream languages usually do). The question then is whether there 
is any practical need for the members of that forum to accept your 
methods. If so, then try again to make your case ... I'm sure there are 
people here who can suggest some "talking points." Otherwise, well, 
innovation has always met with resistance, and probably always will. 
Have confidence in your choices and forge ahead. Or give up. It's your 
choice.

Best of luck with your project.

--
Matt Gushee
Englewood, CO, USA

Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Damien Guichard]

Hi,

Thanks for encouragements.

Indeed OCaml is all about lambdas, any OCaml function is a named-lambda.
OCaml without lambda-calculus is just impossible.
Another adjective for OCaml was "esoteric" and another about Milner type
system was "over the top feature".

I think the only possible answer is to deliver, the functionality overcomes
the resistance.
The first language that delivers has great chances to become the standard.
People that fear OCaml can deliver faster just prove OCaml is better.

- damien



----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Gushee" <mgushee@havenrock.com>
To: <caml-list@inria.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1


> Damien Guichard wrote:
>
> > http://www.bytesmiths.com/Publications/9701ArchitectsVersusCoders.html
>
> Unfortunately, I couldn't connect with this site, but I will venture a
> comment anyway. Since I know nothing about your project, I can only
> respond in the most general terms.
>
> > When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been advised to
> > renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a less obscure,
> > more popular language".
>
> And I imagine the same people who said that would also advise you not to
> use higher-order functions and variant types. Just sacrifice some of
> OCaml's most powerful features for the sake of compatibility ... or
> perhaps we should say (social) conformity. It might be a useful tactic
> in some specific cases, but as a general principle, if you're going to
> do that, why bother with OCaml at all?
>
> Let's assume you had good reasons for choosing OCaml (people who use
> non-mainstream languages usually do). The question then is whether there
> is any practical need for the members of that forum to accept your
> methods. If so, then try again to make your case ... I'm sure there are
> people here who can suggest some "talking points." Otherwise, well,
> innovation has always met with resistance, and probably always will.
> Have confidence in your choices and forge ahead. Or give up. It's your
> choice.
>
> Best of luck with your project.
>
> --
> Matt Gushee
> Englewood, CO, USA
>
> _______________________________________________
> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management:
> http://yquem.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caml-list
> Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>

Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Damien Guichard]

Hi,

Thanks for encouragements.

Indeed OCaml is all about lambdas, any OCaml function is a named-lambda.
OCaml without lambda-calculus is just impossible.
Another adjective for OCaml was "esoteric" and another about Milner type
system was "over the top feature".

I think the only possible answer is to deliver, the functionality overcomes
the resistance.
The first language that delivers has great chances to become the standard.
People that fear OCaml can deliver faster just prove OCaml is better.

- damien



----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Gushee" <mgushee@havenrock.com>
To: <caml-list@inria.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1


> Damien Guichard wrote:
>
> > http://www.bytesmiths.com/Publications/9701ArchitectsVersusCoders.html
>
> Unfortunately, I couldn't connect with this site, but I will venture a
> comment anyway. Since I know nothing about your project, I can only
> respond in the most general terms.
>
> > When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been advised to
> > renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a less obscure,
> > more popular language".
>
> And I imagine the same people who said that would also advise you not to
> use higher-order functions and variant types. Just sacrifice some of
> OCaml's most powerful features for the sake of compatibility ... or
> perhaps we should say (social) conformity. It might be a useful tactic
> in some specific cases, but as a general principle, if you're going to
> do that, why bother with OCaml at all?
>
> Let's assume you had good reasons for choosing OCaml (people who use
> non-mainstream languages usually do). The question then is whether there
> is any practical need for the members of that forum to accept your
> methods. If so, then try again to make your case ... I'm sure there are
> people here who can suggest some "talking points." Otherwise, well,
> innovation has always met with resistance, and probably always will.
> Have confidence in your choices and forge ahead. Or give up. It's your
> choice.
>
> Best of luck with your project.
>
> --
> Matt Gushee
> Englewood, CO, USA
>
> _______________________________________________
> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management:
> http://yquem.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caml-list
> Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>

Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Florian Weimer]

* Damien Guichard:

> When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been
> advised to renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a
> less obscure, more popular language".

Most languages offer strictly downward closures.  Even GCC's C
implementation has them. 8-)

Re: The Caml morale crasher #1

[Stefan Monnier]

>> renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a less obscure,
>> more popular language".

If you worry about translating your code into some other language in the
future, then lambda is the least of your worries,


        Stefan

Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[Florian Weimer]

* David Brown:

> GCC implements this by generating trampolines on the stack and
> passing the address of the newly generated code as the function
> pointer.  It fails to work on platforms that have security features
> that prevent stack execution.

GCC should generate code for the appropriate mprotect calls on these
architectures, so it should work on them, too.

Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[David Brown]

On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 14:55 +0200, yoann padioleau wrote:
> > * Damien Guichard:
> > 
> > > When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been
> > > advised to renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a
> > > less obscure, more popular language".
> > 
> > Most languages offer strictly downward closures.  Even GCC's C
> > implementation has them. 8-)
> 
> Again I think I will disagree on the choice of your words :)
> GCC has nested functions. I think that we can't call that a closure; a closure is something
> that close his environment and store it somewhere. There is no such thing in GCC I think.

GCC definitely implements downward closures.  You can take the address
of nested functions, and as long as the stack frame is still valid, they
have access to values defined in the enclosing function.  GCC implements
this by generating trampolines on the stack and passing the address of
the newly generated code as the function pointer.  It fails to work on
platforms that have security features that prevent stack execution.

Dave

Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[skaller]

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On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 14:55 +0200, yoann padioleau wrote:
> > * Damien Guichard:
> > 
> > > When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been
> > > advised to renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a
> > > less obscure, more popular language".
> > 
> > Most languages offer strictly downward closures.  Even GCC's C
> > implementation has them. 8-)
> 
> Again I think I will disagree on the choice of your words :)
> GCC has nested functions. I think that we can't call that a closure; a closure is something
> that close his environment and store it somewhere. There is no such thing in GCC I think.

My understanding is:

Gcc has first class closures like this stack picture:

closure:
	CALL FUNC
	stack frame here

FUNC:
	POP FP // FP points at the stack frame

Closure's are created by pushing the function
address plus a "CALL" opcode on to the stack,
the SP is then a pointer to the closure.

Execute permission is required for the stack.
Memory management of the thunks, also called
trampolines, is completely automatic.

The closures are valid if, and only if, they're
on the call stack, Damiens 'downward closures':
this means you can pass them as arguments but
not return them, like pointers to any other
local variable in C.

-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sourceforge dot net>


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Re: [Caml-list] The Caml morale crasher #1

[yoann padioleau]

> * Damien Guichard:
> 
> > When annoucing an OCaml project on a public forum i have been
> > advised to renunce lambdas because it would impede translation to "a
> > less obscure, more popular language".
> 
> Most languages offer strictly downward closures.  Even GCC's C
> implementation has them. 8-)

Again I think I will disagree on the choice of your words :)
GCC has nested functions. I think that we can't call that a closure; a closure is something
that close his environment and store it somewhere. There is no such thing in GCC I think.

> 
> _______________________________________________
> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management:
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> Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
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> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
> 
>