From: Erik de Castro Lopo <ocaml-erikd@mega-nerd.com>
To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] The boon of static type checking
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:56:07 +1100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20050206115607.569766b7.ocaml-erikd@mega-nerd.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0502060024590.3432@eiger.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de>
On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 01:02:42 +0100 (CET)
Thomas Fischbacher <Thomas.Fischbacher@Physik.Uni-Muenchen.DE> wrote:
> (1) Portability.
>
> (2) A good compiler.
>
> (3) The ability to create comparatively small standalone programs.
>
> (4) Availability of essential constructions, such as closures.
The features I *REALLY* love in O'caml are pattern matching and higher
order functions (particularly currying).
> (5) Availability of useful libraries.
I would add:
(6) Its far harder to shoot yourself in the foot using O'caml than
it is in C or C++. In particular, in O'caml comapred to C++, if
it compiles, its far more likely to work.
> I think the points why I believe ocaml will never win over a noticeable
> share of especially the lisp community
Those guys are probably a lost cause :-).
> are clear now: there are some
> quirks of the language that in the long run make working with it less fun
> for lisp programmers than working with lisp
I'm a refugee from Python (among other languages) although I still do
use Python for some scripting tasks where O'caml is overkill. My big
gripe with Python results from its dynamic typing. A large class of
errors which are compile time errors in O'caml are run time errors in
Python. I believe that Lisp is also (mostly) dynamically typed.
However, I find it interesting to look at O'caml from the perspective of
the Blub paradox:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox
which holds Lisp as being the closest approximation to a superset of all
other languages. The main feature of Lisp which supposed puts it in this
position is Lisp macros. I also hear that higher order functions are not
used as much in Lisp as they are in O'caml and that this is because of
Lisp's more lax type checking.
Drawing a long bow here, I would postulate that a language with O'caml's
HOF and strict typing and Lisp like macros, might be able to knock Lisp
off its perch. Maybe Nemerle (not that I've used it):
http://www.nemerle.org/
is a language that is getting close to this goal.
> If I were to limit myself to naming only one ugly side of ocaml which I
> would like to see changed, this would be the unavailability of automatical
> printers for complicated composite nested data structures.
I agree. It may be possible to address this with Nemerle's macro capabilities
or even camlp4.
Erik
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Erik de Castro Lopo nospam@mega-nerd.com (Yes it's valid)
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
"... there's something really scary about a language (C++) where
copying state from one object to another is this complicated"
-- Richard Gillam
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2005-02-06 0:56 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 169+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2005-02-02 21:31 Estimating the size of the ocaml community Yaron Minsky
2005-02-02 21:36 ` [Caml-list] " Christopher A. Watford
2005-02-02 21:54 ` Frédéric Gava
2005-02-03 3:58 ` skaller
2005-02-03 6:35 ` Erik de Castro Lopo
2005-02-03 16:29 ` Olivier Pérès
2005-02-03 18:06 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-03 18:34 ` Frédéric Gava
2005-02-03 21:16 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-03 21:58 ` Paul Snively
2005-02-03 22:42 ` Bardur Arantsson
2005-02-03 23:29 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-03 22:33 ` josh
2005-02-03 23:22 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-03 23:39 ` Richard Jones
2005-02-04 9:04 ` Frédéric Gava
2005-02-04 9:37 ` Richard Jones
2005-02-04 10:11 ` Olivier Andrieu
2005-02-04 11:14 ` Frédéric Gava
2005-02-04 12:15 ` Richard Jones
2005-02-04 12:46 ` Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk
2005-02-04 12:51 ` Gerd Stolpmann
2005-02-04 13:43 ` Richard W. M. Jones
2005-02-04 16:01 ` Gerd Stolpmann
2005-02-04 16:52 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 17:21 ` Frédéric Gava
2005-02-04 17:55 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 16:48 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 12:15 ` Olivier Andrieu
2005-02-04 16:42 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 10:58 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 17:27 ` Damien Doligez
2005-02-04 17:59 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 1:17 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-04 10:53 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 22:01 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-05 12:27 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-06 0:08 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-03 23:29 ` Richard Jones
2005-02-04 2:33 ` Jon Harrop
[not found] ` <877e9a170502031856175260c8@mail.gmail.com>
2005-02-04 2:56 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-04 10:26 ` [Caml-list] The boon of static type checking Jon Harrop
2005-02-04 17:02 ` Damien Doligez
2005-02-04 18:00 ` Jon Harrop
2005-02-04 20:38 ` Christophe TROESTLER
2005-02-04 21:42 ` Jon Harrop
2005-02-04 22:11 ` Christophe TROESTLER
2005-02-05 0:58 ` Jon Harrop
2005-02-05 1:52 ` Shivkumar Chandrasekaran
2005-02-07 18:47 ` Damien Doligez
2005-02-05 5:24 ` Jacques Garrigue
2005-02-04 21:52 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-04 22:27 ` Christophe TROESTLER
2005-02-05 10:00 ` Remi Vanicat
2005-02-06 11:18 ` Christophe TROESTLER
2005-02-04 22:55 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-06 0:02 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-06 0:56 ` Erik de Castro Lopo [this message]
2005-02-06 10:03 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-06 1:34 ` Richard Jones
2005-02-06 2:30 ` Erik de Castro Lopo
2005-02-06 9:54 ` Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk
2005-02-06 10:05 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-05 21:48 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-06 10:22 ` Radu Grigore
2005-02-06 12:16 ` Gerd Stolpmann
2005-02-06 14:59 ` skaller
2005-02-06 22:30 ` Radu Grigore
2005-02-07 3:15 ` Erik de Castro Lopo
2005-02-06 17:28 ` Jon
2005-02-06 22:26 ` Radu Grigore
2005-02-07 2:51 ` skaller
2005-02-07 1:54 ` skaller
2005-02-07 5:34 ` Brian Hurt
2005-02-07 6:16 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-07 14:58 ` Igor Pechtchanski
2005-02-12 15:22 ` Brian Hurt
2005-02-12 16:11 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-12 18:47 ` Brian Hurt
2005-02-12 21:58 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-12 17:06 ` skaller
2005-02-12 22:57 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-13 1:12 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-13 1:51 ` Tony Edgin
2005-02-13 2:12 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-13 10:26 ` Daniel Heck
2005-02-13 18:28 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-13 20:52 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-13 21:42 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-13 22:51 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-13 23:59 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-14 0:11 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-14 0:42 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-14 1:11 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-14 1:46 ` Michael Vanier
2005-02-14 1:57 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-14 14:19 ` Stefan Monnier
2005-02-14 14:36 ` [Caml-list] " Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-14 1:19 ` [Caml-list] " Michael Walter
2005-02-14 17:29 ` Martin Berger
2005-02-14 18:44 ` skaller
2005-02-14 19:17 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-14 2:22 ` skaller
2005-02-14 8:04 ` Paul Snively
2005-02-14 9:33 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-14 9:39 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-14 2:10 ` skaller
2005-02-13 2:27 ` Brian Hurt
2005-02-13 2:34 ` Michael Walter
2005-02-07 10:57 ` Ville-Pertti Keinonen
2005-02-07 16:58 ` skaller
2005-02-07 17:24 ` Ville-Pertti Keinonen
2005-02-07 17:56 ` Paul Snively
2005-02-07 17:59 ` skaller
2005-02-07 17:30 ` skaller
2005-02-07 13:07 ` Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk
2005-02-12 15:42 ` Brian Hurt
2005-02-07 17:42 ` Ken Rose
2005-02-07 2:23 ` skaller
2005-02-04 9:29 ` [Caml-list] Estimating the size of the ocaml community Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-04 10:26 ` Andreas Rossberg
2005-02-04 17:54 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-04 15:43 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 19:54 ` Christophe TROESTLER
2005-02-04 20:20 ` Karl Zilles
2005-02-04 22:07 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-04 9:41 ` Richard Jones
2005-02-04 10:03 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-04 16:00 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 17:32 ` sejourne_kevin
2005-02-04 18:46 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-05 1:49 ` skaller
2005-02-04 8:55 ` Ville-Pertti Keinonen
2005-02-04 9:36 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-04 10:30 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-04 22:02 ` Thomas Fischbacher
2005-02-05 13:14 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-05 16:37 ` Why can't types and exceptions be nested (was: Re: [Caml-list] Estimating the size of the ocaml community) Richard Jones
2005-02-05 17:04 ` Basile STARYNKEVITCH
2005-02-05 19:26 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-06 2:56 ` skaller
2005-02-04 21:55 ` [Caml-list] Estimating the size of the ocaml community Basile STARYNKEVITCH
2005-02-03 19:04 ` ronniec95
2005-02-03 20:06 ` skaller
2005-02-03 20:50 ` chris.danx
2005-02-03 21:14 ` Jon Harrop
2005-02-03 21:34 ` chris.danx
2005-02-03 22:07 ` Bardur Arantsson
2005-02-03 21:47 ` Nicolas Cannasse
2005-02-04 3:52 ` skaller
2005-02-04 16:12 ` Oliver Bandel
2005-02-05 2:04 ` skaller
2005-02-03 20:35 ` chris.danx
2005-02-03 8:36 ` sejourne_kevin
2005-02-03 8:39 ` Matthieu Brucher
2005-02-03 16:23 ` Olivier Pérès
2005-02-03 10:10 ` Stefano Zacchiroli
2005-02-03 16:44 ` Vincenzo Ciancia
2005-02-02 22:10 ` [Caml-list] " Kenneth Knowles
2005-02-02 22:40 ` Michael Jeffrey Tucker
2005-02-02 22:52 ` Richard Jones
2005-02-02 23:42 ` Nicolas Cannasse
2005-02-03 6:53 ` Evan Martin
2005-02-03 6:57 ` Eric Stokes
2005-02-03 20:53 ` chris.danx
2005-02-03 23:29 ` Sylvain LE GALL
2005-02-03 23:38 ` sejourne_kevin
2005-02-07 8:49 ` Sven Luther
2005-02-07 9:23 ` Johann Spies
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