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From: Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@bononia.it>
To: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] undocumented external ... = "%identity"
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 20:55:48 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20031030195548.GD19967@fistandantilus.takhisis.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20031029203935I.garrigue@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp>

On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 08:39:35PM +0900, Jacques Garrigue wrote:
> I suppose that as Obj.magic is not documented, this is not documented
> either. 

Ok, thanks for your answer.

Now, let me restate my question: whi obj.magic _and_ "%identity" are not
documented? Usually undocumented stuff is stuff subject to changes, not
stable, ecc ...

Practically, a lot of people use Obj.magic when needed and it seems to
be part of the required knowledge to be a "discriminating hacker"(TM).
The reason that it's unsafe and can make your program crash, IMO, is not
a good reason not to have it documented. Indeed C interfacing APIs are
documented and they are as risky as using Obj.magic and friends.

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli  --  Master in Computer Science @ Uni. Bologna, Italy
zack@{cs.unibo.it,debian.org,bononia.it}  -  http://www.bononia.it/zack/
"  I know you believe you understood what you think I said, but I am not
sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant!  " -- G.Romney

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  reply	other threads:[~2003-10-30 19:55 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2003-10-29 10:42 Stefano Zacchiroli
2003-10-29 11:39 ` Jacques Garrigue
2003-10-30 19:55   ` Stefano Zacchiroli [this message]
2003-10-31  7:47     ` William Lovas
2003-11-01  8:22       ` Stefano Zacchiroli
2003-11-03 14:03         ` Damien Doligez
2003-11-03 14:20           ` Nicolas Cannasse

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