Re: [Caml-list] [ANN] The Missing Library

[oliver@first.in-berlin.de (Oliver Bandel)]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 11:26:40PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 24, 2004 at 12:04:08AM +0200, Alain.Frisch@ens.fr wrote:
> > On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, John Goerzen wrote:
> > 
> > > Let me expand on this a bit.  It is clear that people are unsatisfied
> > > with the quality of the standard library and that others have been able
> > > to provide useful features (*cough* IPv6 and other basic Unix calls) far
> > > sooner than Inria has.  Why are you oppsed to this?
> > 
> > Please note that Unix is *not* part of the OCaml standard library. It is
> > just a library included in the standard distribution.
> 
> That is interesting to note but, does it actually mean something?  (This
> is not a rhetorical question; I really don't know.)  I always assumed
> the libraries listed separately in the docs were just that way because I
> had to explicitly list unix.cmxa or str.cmxa to link with them...

Yes, that is really intersting tolook at it this way.

> 
> > Maybe the situation would more clear if:
> > 1] the standard library was called the bootstrap library;
> > 2] other libraries were removed from the standard distribution (ok, maybe
> >    except dynlink, bigarray, threads which require some cooperaton with
> >    the compiler, AFAIK).
> 
> Yes.  That could make a lot of things easier.  As I've pointed out in
> some of my other messages, the problem with Unix in particular is that
> forking it will result in a painful compatibility choice for developers.
> If Unix could be split off the core and allowed to evolve more rapidly,
> that seems only a good thing to me.

It could also mean that - if Extlib or something else - is mature
and ok for the OCaml-core-team then it could be added here too.

Why not developping external libraries in fast cycles and
- from time to time, when reviewed by the OCaml-team -
adding such libraries in a slower cycle into the Ocaml
distribution?

Similar to Linux's unstable-stable distinction, where one
might rather use the stable versions when working in an
production environment and the unstable when one wants
to try the newest feateures... it could be done with OCaml
in a similar way: Using the newest external libs, when
you want, or using the (lower update frequencies) not-so-external
libs, that come along with the distribution, but it will not
be updated as often as the versions/releases of the "external"
lib that was not released with the OCaml distribution?

So "external" libraries could come along with the OCaml-distribution,
but will not updated as often as the same libraries on the
public cvs.

This would be not "free access cvs VERSUS INRIA-Ocaml-distribution",
it would be "free assess cvs ALONG WITH INRIA-Ocaml-distribution".



Ciao,
   Oliver

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