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 WAA11158; Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:40:11 +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 WAA11334 for ; Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:40:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net (smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.214.181]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id i7RKe5Gi023232 for ; Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:40:08 +0200 Received: from [192.168.1.200] (ppp212-216.lns2.syd3.internode.on.net [203.122.212.216]) by smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i7RKds4Y038670; Sat, 28 Aug 2004 06:09:55 +0930 (CST) Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Alternative Bytecodes for OCaml From: skaller Reply-To: skaller@users.sourceforge.net To: John Goerzen Cc: caml-list , Nicolas Cannasse In-Reply-To: <200408271349.25317.jgoerzen@complete.org> References: <200408250926.28629.jgoerzen@complete.org> <200408271255.43586.jgoerzen@complete.org> <1093631836.15255.1424.camel@pelican.wigram> <200408271349.25317.jgoerzen@complete.org> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1093639193.15255.1543.camel@pelican.wigram> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.2.2 (1.2.2-4) Date: 28 Aug 2004 06:39:54 +1000 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 412F9C25.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 bytecodes:01 sourceforge:01 2004:99 2004:99 higher-level:01 governing:99 posix:01 python:01 apis:01 9660:01 glebe:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 interfaces:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Sat, 2004-08-28 at 04:49, John Goerzen wrote: > On Friday 27 August 2004 01:37 pm, skaller wrote: > > The way to get a library of important utilities > > for Ocaml is to (a) make interfaces to C and (b) write the code > > in Ocaml. > > Why is C so much better? It's actually pretty darn difficult to > interface to C from a higher-level language. Two reasons. One: C is the portable interface to almost all operating systems -- there are ISO Standards governing compliance (both for C and Posix) and interface specs from people like Microsoft. Two: there are a lot of libraries written in C with C interfaces, which are either compliant with some standard or open source. In particular most programming languages, such as Python, have C level APIs. So binding to C does really have a particular importance. Ocaml already has reasonable facilities to do it (including documentation) > And (b) is sometimes just NOT an option, either because of time > constraints or because you don't know what the original code does to > start with. I agree. But an off-the-shelf guarranteed interface to Java isn't currently available either. Where should you put your energy? > That's way too easy: JDBC. (Not because OcamlDBI sucks but because so > many databases have JDBC available.) Surely enhancing OcamlDBI is a viable option? -- 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