Re: [Caml-list] about OcamIL

[Erik de Castro Lopo <mle+ocaml@mega-nerd.com>]

ben kuin wrote:

> English is not my first language, maybe I misunderstand, but what
> you're are saying here sound like a complete contradiction to me:
> Like you say C and C++ are considered as 'unsafe' languages.

Yes. One can't really program in those languages without using
pointers and manually allocating/deallocating memory.

> But thats
> because they offer features, that are not available when programming
> for a vm. This has nothing to do with languages, it's a conscious
> platform decision.

Yes, many languages (native compiled Ocaml and Haskell are just
two) have garbage collection and are fundamentally safe.
 
> I'd call that a questionable decision.

I call requiring a VM one more potential point of failure.

> As far as I know, using native
> binaries means to open a whole range of potentially uncorrectionable
> problems with abi incomptabilities between libraries or with changes
> of the underlying os.

My experience says otherwise. My experience consists of having lots of
small self contained programs, written in Ocaml and distributed using
the Debian packaging system.

Binary incompatibilities always get found during development and
developer testing and QA.

I find Ocaml native binaries far more reliable that those of C and
C++ and that reliability is due to garbage collection, and the fact
that Ocaml's type system helps prevent bugs.


> As far as I know when you go native you always have to take abi
> incompatibility and therefore recompilation into account. For business
> apps, that's a showstopper.

You have no idea just how much you are overstating the case.

> Would you mind to share some infos about your experiences, maybe on your
> blog?

There's really not much to share. Its programs written in Ocaml and
distributed to the client machines via the Debian packaging system.
 
Erik
-- 
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Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/