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 PAA05496; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:48:21 +0100 (MET) Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA06195; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:48:20 +0100 (MET) Received: from lachesis.inria.fr (lachesis.inria.fr [128.93.52.5]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id fA6EmKT24721; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:48:20 +0100 (MET) Received: (from lefessan@localhost) by lachesis.inria.fr (8.11.3/8.11.3) id fA6DnUF17986; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:49:30 +0100 X-Authentication-Warning: lachesis.inria.fr: lefessan set sender to fabrice.le_fessant@inria.fr using -f From: Fabrice Le Fessant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15335.60010.473147.961881@lachesis.inria.fr> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:49:30 +0100 (CET) To: Xavier Leroy Cc: caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] compiler patches in the CDK References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011030174718.02888870@arda.pair.com> <15327.44357.213918.877416@lachesis.inria.fr> <20011106152001.C3221@pauillac.inria.fr> X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under Emacs 20.7.1 Reply-To: fabrice.le_fessant@inria.fr Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk Xavier wrote: > This is one thing I'm not sure to understand about the CDK. > > My initial view of the CDK is as a pre-packaged binary installation of > OCaml plus lots of user-contributed libraries and tools: a very > convenient thing indeed for users who want an OCaml development > environment that works and that is rich enough, without the hassle of > tracking down and installing all the bits themselves. Excellent idea. > > But then we learn that the CDK also includes some experimental, not > much tested patches to the OCaml compilers, and that by doing this > Fabrice intends the CDK to serve also as a beta-test for these > experimental extensions and changes. > > So, is the CDK a stable, convenient distribution for users who > want something that works with no hassle, or an experimental > distribution for users who want to sit on the bleeding edge and > beta-test things? I understand that the idea of untested patches being included in the CDK can frighten users. Two replies: 1) Most patches which were included in the CDK until a recent date were very simple patches, which only modify small well delimited parts of the compiler. Bugs in these patches are very unlikely. However, it is true that I've added some experimental patches very recently, with the idea that the CDK should also welcome contributed patches to the compiler as it welcomes contributed libraries, some of these patches being often asked for on the caml mailing-list. I've tried to read these patches carefully, before including them, to reduce the risk of introducing bugs. In particular, most of them require the use of special keywords or options to trigger them, and so, should not introduce bugs for users that don't use them. 2) As a result of your mail, and of the discussion of this morning, I will remove all experimental patches from the compiler distributed in the CDK. However, since I think some of the experimental patches can still be useful for some users, I will investigate if I can add a second compiler, something like ocamlc-patched and ocamlopt-patched, that will contain some of the patches and still be compatible with object files generated by ocamlc and ocamlopt. Hope this answers your curiosity. - Fabrice ------------------- Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr