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 OAA23901; Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:02:01 +0100 (MET) 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 OAA17242 for ; Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:02:00 +0100 (MET) Received: from miss.wu-wien.ac.at (miss.wu-wien.ac.at [137.208.107.17]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id f2MD1xT08189 for ; Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:01:59 +0100 (MET) Received: (from mottl@localhost) by miss.wu-wien.ac.at (8.9.0/8.9.0) id OAA14574; Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:01:58 +0100 (MET) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:01:57 +0100 From: Markus Mottl To: Hendrik Tews Cc: OCAML Subject: Re: [Caml-list] recursive modules redux, & interface files Message-ID: <20010322140157.A7070@miss.wu-wien.ac.at> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010318142842.00d85300@shell16.ba.best.com> <20010321194138.A29405@pauillac.inria.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from tews@tcs.inf.tu-dresden.de on Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 13:02:34 +0100 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk Hendrik Tews schrieb am Thursday, den 22. March 2001: > I would like to vote for solutions that work for the common case > when writing large programs, even if they are hacks, considered > from a theoretical point of view. I am not so fond of sacrificing theoretical beauty: it usually seems to be the case that there are working solutions that are also elegant - it's only a matter of thinking about them long enough. You might speed up development a bit by allowing hacks if you cannot immediately find a sound solution, but IMHO it is hardly ever a good idea in the long run. > I think that in this case the theoretical cleaness is overrated. In general? Probably not. If there is a problem with expressiveness or else, it seems to be better to first try harder to find a solution with the existing system before crying for a hacky extension. And if this doesn't work, let's try to find a more expressive theory rather than abandoning theory completely. > Cross module recursion of functions is soo useful, that it > should be made to work --- even if the solution seems stupid with > respect to the example above. Nearly everytime I had thought "now I need recursive modules", I found other, even elegant ways to do it. If we really want them, please let's don't put aside theory but take existing clean solutions (e.g. see Claudio Russo's thesis). > [duplications in signatures and structures] > > Is the practical value of this kludge enough to forget that it's a > kludge? > > Sure. The solution to put the whole signature into a separate .ml-file requires hardly any work and solves this problem neatly. Why introduce a kludge if there are reasonable ways to do it? > No, at least I cannot. Do you have examples where the current system is just too awkward to use? > Also here I would suggest to have a > solution that works for the common case. What about changing > include, such that including a signature into a structure > includes all types and all exceptions? But you can do this (and I do it regularly) by putting the signature stuff into a separate module (or .ml-file): then you can "include" things in your structures to your hearts delight (thanks to the new way of using "include" with structures). Regards, Markus Mottl -- Markus Mottl, mottl@miss.wu-wien.ac.at, http://miss.wu-wien.ac.at/~mottl ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr. Archives: http://caml.inria.fr