Re: [Caml-list] How to do this properly with OCaml?

[Jere Sanisalo <xm@xmunkki.org>]

On Mon, Jul 25, 2005 at 08:10:29PM -0500, Brian Hurt wrote:
>>Depends on the task.. What if it was a hardware driver?
>Hardware drivers are specialized tasks.  One thing that drives me crazy is 
>the assumption that a language needs to be able to do everything, and if 
>it can't, it can't do anything.

Well I was hardly saying that now was I? In my line of work (games) you
often need to cross the borders a bit in order to accomplish what you want.
I'm a bit late in these discussions and I just started to feel like I was
throwing gas on the fire. I'm sorry about that, and I will refrain further
from this discussion (after this message).

It's just that I know that I'm missing some crucial learning points about
designing software in FP manner. And games *are* close to the HW, usually.
Not always, but sometimes. And some gameplay tweaks are near the tweaks HW
drivers do (perhaps because it's not researched enough, perhaps? this is the
thing I want to know).

>The point is that instead of bitching about how hard it is to implement 
>the other language's solution in this language, to instead be thinking 
>about the correct solution to implement in this language.

And this is indeed the thing I want to know.. But before, I was just saying,
that in general, a languages "usefulness" is usually measured by the things
it can do. And by that, people rarely consider the language. Actually what
they consider is the API and the libraries. Just one pellet of fuel to the
fire, I guess.. :)

But just to recap, I really really want to stop programming my games in C++.
I have been looking for a way out for years. I have found one possibility
for tools; .NET/C#. Not quite the ideal, but F# helps in some respects and
the API is quite nice for tools. But I find many gaming problems to be
easier to solve in FP manner, but some of their relatives tie to the
hardware and low level way of thinking. If I'm small minded now, that's ok.
I'm not saying I'm right.

I just want to learn ;D.

But that's it for me now.. I'll keep my eye on this thread, though..

And sorry again..

-- 
Jere Sanisalo [xm@xmunkki.org] - http://www.xmunkki.org/