MinCaml English Documentation

[Eijiro Sumii <eijiro_sumii@anet.ne.jp>]

Hi All,

I've uploaded a (rather quick) translation of my MinCaml compiler
tutorial:

  http://min-caml.sourceforge.net/index-e.html

It should be readable enough, though I'm not a very good English
writer (and some comments in the source code are still in Japanese).

Comments are welcome.  I don't have so much experience even in
compiler development (unlike Xavier and other real experts here).

From: "Jon Harrop" <jon@jdh30.plus.com>
> Are you interested in commercialising this project? I think that many 
> companies would be interested in a mini compiler which they could customise 
> themselves, e.g. to create JIT compilers, or to have a decent embedded 
> language.

I'm not sure if MinCaml by itself can make any money:-) but I've
always been wondering if it is possible to sell the "programming
language processing technology" (which is the killer application of
ML).  I heard Galois Connection has been doing something like that by
using Haskell, focusing on security in particular.

> I'd prioritise data types next, and pattern matching (of course) if that is 
> not implemented already.

I agree.  In fact, I'm looking for a good (as simple and efficient as
possible) algorithm of pattern matching.  Any suggestions, anyone?

> Might I suggest an OCaml byte-code back end? Then you could "borrow" the OCaml 
> GC.

Actually, I feel a little reluctant to use byte code in the back end,
because (for the original educational purpose) it hides some important
details - such as garbage collection!  On the other hand, if
supporting (not teaching) GC is important, I believe Boem's GC does a
good job even though it is conservative.

--
Eijiro Sumii (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~sumii/)
Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania