From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id PAA08383; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 15:52:42 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA09183 for ; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 15:52:41 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net (smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.214.181]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i37DrUjq011814 for ; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 15:53:32 +0200 Received: from [192.168.1.200] (ppp116-94.lns1.syd2.internode.on.net [150.101.116.94]) by smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i37DqHKg017411; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 23:22:21 +0930 (CST) Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Function forward declaration? From: skaller Reply-To: skaller@users.sourceforge.net To: Nicolas Cannasse Cc: "Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk" , caml-list In-Reply-To: <002901c41c65$b53e4c50$19b0e152@warp> References: <60532B15DF92FD4693AA89B2F7E01D8F013F29EC@tmex02> <00cf01c41bd6$391b53a0$0203a8c0@hoedic> <20040406175320.GA19840@redhat.com> <1081279717.16531.6.camel@qrnik> <002901c41c65$b53e4c50$19b0e152@warp> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1081345936.19232.579.camel@pelican> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.2.2 (1.2.2-4) Date: 07 Apr 2004 23:52:17 +1000 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Miltered: at nez-perce by Joe's j-chkmail ("http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr")! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 sourceforge:01 2004:99 cannasse:01 marginally:01 stupid:01 9660:01 glebe:01 compiler:01 compiler:01 ocaml:01 nicolas:01 imho:01 imho:01 nsw:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 89 On Wed, 2004-04-07 at 16:01, Nicolas Cannasse wrote: > > What would this code do? > What about "compilation error : recursive calls in forward declaration" ? That's the whole point of having forward declarations though .. :) > And what would this code do ? > > let f () = while true do () done It blocks a thread. Not even marginally stupid, a very common and correct construction at the heart of every operating system, it even has a name "wait loop". > IMHO, function forward > declaration is such a thing : very useful in most of the cases, still > theoricaly broken (as your example show), IMHO it isn't forward calling that is broken, but global variables. > and this can be checked by the compiler. How? *** What do you suggest if the compiler is not sure if a variable is initialised or not? Java bans, Felix allows, Ocaml forces the programmer to hack. *** This isn't a dumb question. Sophisticated algorithms can chase down uninitialised values. The question is, is it sensible in a language to have an error condition be so elusive that a human can't determine whether the error will be issued or not? -- John Skaller, mailto:skaller@users.sf.net voice: 061-2-9660-0850, snail: PO BOX 401 Glebe NSW 2037 Australia Checkout the Felix programming language http://felix.sf.net ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners