From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 X-Original-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 21E51BC69 for ; Sat, 10 Mar 2007 15:55:49 +0100 (CET) Received: from furbychan.cocan.org (furbychan.cocan.org [80.68.91.176]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l2AEtlTC022273 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO) for ; Sat, 10 Mar 2007 15:55:48 +0100 Received: from rich by furbychan.cocan.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1HQ2z4-00041y-00 for ; Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:55:46 +0000 Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:55:46 +0000 To: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Interactive technical computing Message-ID: <20070310145546.GA9357@furbychan.cocan.org> References: <3D1E4D9CA9BCE04D8F2B55F203AE4CE30666AB7C@selma.roomandboard.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3D1E4D9CA9BCE04D8F2B55F203AE4CE30666AB7C@selma.roomandboard.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i From: Richard Jones X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 45F2C6F3.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail . ensmp . fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; ocamlopt:01 ocaml:01 malloc:01 ocaml:01 bindings:01 wrote:01 compile:01 compile:01 caml-list:01 functions:01 api:01 native:02 dll:03 programming:03 languages:03 On Thu, Mar 08, 2007 at 03:26:03PM -0600, Robert Fischer wrote: > > Putting aside the obvious cultural resistance to using a sensible > > language for this project, there is one technical hurdle: It needs to > > compile into a DLL which can be linked to other programs (in C and > > other languages). I can't generate such code using ocamlopt, at least > > not without using unsupported out-of-tree extensions. > > > I don't think this is a real hurdle to general adoption of a language. > After all, Java and C# aren't intended to be used like that, yet they > certainly have wide-spread adoption. It is a hurdle because not all programming is writing end-user application code. In fact what is somewhat sad is that OCaml (unlike Java and C#) can compile to native code which really has very minimal "environmental needs" - just a smallish library of functions and a GC which is written on top of C's malloc. So really it could be an ideal replacement for libraries written in C, where the heavy lifting is done in OCaml and there are some thin bindings to provide a C API. Rich. -- Richard Jones Red Hat