Re: [Caml-list] [OSR] OCaml Standard Recommandation Process

[Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>]

On Monday 28 January 2008 17:30:40 David Teller wrote:
> A few things here:
> * we can provide two libraries, one with monads and one without, and let
> users choose whichever they use

Why not provide both? After all, people are suggesting pulling in lots of 
esoteric libraries like Extlib...

> * it's quite easy to build a generic resource-disposal facility on par
> with 'use' or 'try...finally...', even without resorting to Camlp4 -- I
> leave that as an exercise to the reader or to the time when we decide to
> start an OSR thread on that issue

Combinators are certainly better than nothing and easier to implement (because 
they don't touch the language) but they can't compete with syntactic sugar 
for brevity and clarity, of course.

> * in any case, there's no need to change OCaml itself to do any of
> these, or even to add a IDisposable interface and an object-oriented
> hierarchy, only the distribution.

This should be in the stdlib (I don't know if that counts as "changing 
OCaml").

> Let me remind you that the initial topic of the thread was to agree upon
> a discussion process, not to debate on a specific issue.

Agreed. We need a more appropriate forum. I think a Wiki would be a great 
breeding ground for proposals.

> So do we agree on the OSR process as I've described it or does anyone
> believe we should first change it ?

I believe it is a good idea, yes. :-)

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?e