Re: [Caml-list] Large projects in OCaml

[Xavier Leroy <xavier.leroy@inria.fr>]

> What matters to end-users is shared libraries
> which Ocaml can't build at all. The real world out
> there demands *components* they can plug together.

The next time I read a sentence starting with "the real world", I
think I'm going to scream.  

At any rate, your jump from shared libraries to components is a
non-sequitur.  Shared libraries are a spectacularly poor component
model (no multiple interfaces, almost no dynamic discovery of
interfaces, no distribution transparency of any kind, etc).

It is true that some component models use shared libraries as one of
their low-level implementation mechanisms, e.g. COM components are
often presented as Windows DLLs.  But these are shared libraries of a
very constrained form, and (for instance) OCaml has no problems
generating a DLL that encapsulates OCaml code as a COM component.

A good component model for OCaml (and other languages): that would be
interesting.  Shared libraries for the sake of shared libraries: that
isn't interesting in the least.

- Xavier Leroy

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