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 SAA12497; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:46:41 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f 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 SAA13167 for ; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:46:40 +0100 (MET) Received: from fichte.ai.univie.ac.at (fichte.ai.univie.ac.at [131.130.174.156]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g14Hkc110881; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:46:38 +0100 (MET) Received: from chopin.ai.univie.ac.at (root@chopin.ai.univie.ac.at [131.130.174.170]) by fichte.ai.univie.ac.at (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-21) with ESMTP id SAA00650; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:46:38 +0100 Received: (from markus@localhost) by chopin.ai.univie.ac.at (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-21) id SAA23981; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:46:38 +0100 Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:46:38 +0100 From: Markus Mottl To: Daniel de Rauglaudre Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] syntax change (was: camlp4o problem) Message-ID: <20020204174638.GC22676@chopin.ai.univie.ac.at> Mail-Followup-To: Daniel de Rauglaudre , caml-list@inria.fr References: <9BE7FA48-1771-11D6-A336-003065BDAA76@ece.ucsb.edu> <15454.38553.300800.53941@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <20020204155242.B2338@verdot.inria.fr> <20020204150839.GE14738@chopin.ai.univie.ac.at> <20020204164154.D2338@verdot.inria.fr> <20020204162513.GA22263@chopin.ai.univie.ac.at> <20020204180136.F2338@verdot.inria.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020204180136.F2338@verdot.inria.fr> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.26i Organization: Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Mon, 04 Feb 2002, Daniel de Rauglaudre wrote: > What do you call "standard"? Yes, my revised syntax is "standard": it > is "standard" Camlp4: the sources of Camlp4 are in the revised syntax. I don't think there is much point to argue: "standard" is what the OCaml-reference manual says on the language definition and what the compilers accept as default. Quite unsurprisingly, this is what >99% of all OCaml-developers are using... > I compile the whole compiler with -pp camlp4o, the otherlibs included > without any problem. I am pretty sure that it would work for your code > with minor changes which would remain backward compatible. Try it out. Sure. But programming is also a social activity (well, at least sometimes I'd hope this were the case ;). This means that it is out of the question to let everybody write in whatever style he thinks is right just because some preprocessor does conversions automagically. Just think of teaching OCaml: would you really want to have every teacher use his favourite style? - That's an easy way to drive off prospective users. > The problem is that if you changed your syntax, you cannot "downgrade" > your compiler to the previous version. Nobody changes production code to a new language syntax just for the fun of it. In any case, I am not sure that this is really a problem: unless you use new, possibly broken semantic features, you'd only have to fix potential bugs in the preprocessor to make your sources work with the old compiler again, wouldn't you? > > I disagree here. People need a "soft kick" to change. > > No: people will accept a change if they need some. This is, I fear, not the way the "masses" behave. > But I am quite sure that many people think this: "yes there is a > problem of syntax in the language, but not so important". The current OCaml-syntax is definitely not as broken as the ones of most (if not all) mainstream languages. In fact, one may get to like its quirks :-) > I often heard the argument: "it is only syntax!". A certain "Markus > Mottl" telling a few mails ago: "Though semantics is usually > considered the more interesting part of languages..." This is not a contradiction, IMHO. Semantics is not only more interesting (= potentially more rewarding), it is also much more difficult to improve (= higher costs). If you perform a cost/benefit analysis, there may be a point where the ratio is better for syntactic improvements. I am not sure whether we are already there. AFAIK, there are still somewhat large semantic extensions in the development pipeline. Just to make this clear: being a "normal syntax" user, I am not pushing for any specific syntactic changes. I am just asking whether the OCaml-team considers major syntax improvements in their development strategy at all. It's not a problem for me directly if things stay as they are. It may, however, benefit the growth of OCaml if there is such a strategy. Regards, Markus Mottl -- Markus Mottl markus@oefai.at Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.oefai.at/~markus ------------------- 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