Re: [Caml-list] Conditional Compilation (was mod_caml Makefile)

[Kenneth Knowles <kknowles@berkeley.edu>]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 04:32:25AM +1000, skaller wrote:
> camlp4 has conditional compilation.. and lots more :D
> but it only works with Ocaml ..

Oh, cool, I'm not really hip to camlp4.
 
> In general the answer is the same as I keep giving:
> if you have a general purpose language and use it
> as a code generator, the very notion of 'conditional
> compilation' as some kind of special feature makes
> you roll on the floor laughing.
> Its a programming language, of course it has
> conditionals!

Well, right.  A build-time script, whether python, O'Caml, or whatever can
generate code (or generate another program to generate another program to
generate code), but that's no fun.  I'd much prefer a mini language that takes
valid O'Caml in and is guaranteed to spit valid O'Caml out.  I suspect camlp4 is
what I want.

If I really needed a code-generator I'm always free to use my configure script
to do it, that is just a relatively feature-bare and unsafe approach.

Kenn

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