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 CAA29443; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 02:19:24 +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 CAA29415 for ; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 02:19:23 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from smtp3.adl2.internode.on.net (smtp3.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.214.203]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i3Q0JKjq011014 for ; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 02:19:21 +0200 Received: from [192.168.1.200] (ppp119-113.lns1.syd2.internode.on.net [150.101.119.113]) by smtp3.adl2.internode.on.net (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i3Q0JFk2053464; Mon, 26 Apr 2004 09:49:15 +0930 (CST) Subject: Re: [Caml-list] [ANN] The Missing Library From: skaller Reply-To: skaller@users.sourceforge.net To: Benjamin Geer Cc: james woodyatt , The Caml Trade In-Reply-To: <408BD44C.6090303@socialtools.net> References: <20040423185148.GA4434@excelhustler.com> <20040423195206.GA27257@tallman.kefka.frap.net> <20040423202342.GA5962@excelhustler.com> <20040423223611.33ef1c08@haddock.max.fr> <20040423211003.GD6783@excelhustler.com> <20040423213325.GF6783@excelhustler.com> <93448C92-9685-11D8-891D-000A958FF2FE@wetware.com> <408BAD05.7060205@socialtools.net> <1082902006.9537.337.camel@pelican.wigram> <408BD44C.6090303@socialtools.net> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1082938753.9537.448.camel@pelican.wigram> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.2.2 (1.2.2-4) Date: 26 Apr 2004 10:19:14 +1000 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Miltered: at = 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 apis:01 interfacing:01 swig:01 9660:01 glebe:01 bindings:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 nsw:01 snail:02 unix:02 checkout:02 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Mon, 2004-04-26 at 01:07, Benjamin Geer wrote: > skaller wrote: > > Portable C++ is easy to write. > > I'm thinking of the differences between the Unix and the Win32 APIs. > That's one kind of library incompatibility that has caused programmers > no end of pain. I agree, but that isn't the fault of C or C++, anymore than the collection of common libraries that are available and are hard to interface: the same problem will *always* arise in any general purpose programming language which is popular enough to inspire a large number of development efforts. > That's the sort of pain I think we can avoid in the > OCaml world by putting in place a reasonable community structure. I don't see how we can avoid this pain. We still have to deal with interfacing to existing libraries. We can, perhaps, ameliorate some of the pain by a coordinated effort at standardisation, but we are also going to get extra pain that is not felt by C/C++ programmers, because we actually have to create bindings for C/C++ libraries to use them: C/C++ programmers do not. This is one reason I think an Ocaml based wrapper generator would be a good idea: the community can gain control over the generator and make it work much better than a foreign tool like SWIG. Of course this isn't complete solution, and it has no real impact on designing a standard, fairly rich, algorithms and data structures library. -- 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