Re: [Caml-list] Wanted: your feedback on the hierarchy of OCaml Batteries Included

[Richard Jones <rich@annexia.org>]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 01:15:39PM +0100, David Teller wrote:
> Do you see any better way of managing the complexity of all this?

I'm still not getting where the benefit of having this hierarchy is,
except that it adds a Java-like complexity and will create
hard-to-manage churn if a module ever moves.

API changes are handled really badly in OCaml, ironically because of
the lack of a textual preprocessor.  You can't just write this every
time lablgtk / calendar / latest culprit decides to change their API:

#ifdef LABLGTK < 210
  let icon = GMisc.image () in
  icon#set_stock icon_type ~size:size;
  icon
#else
  let icon = GMisc.image () in
  icon#set_stock `DIALOG_ERROR;
  icon#set_icon_size `DIALOG;
  icon
#endif

(Well, you can run -pp cpp, but that breaks other stuff)

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat