[Caml-list] Questions about OCaml and google native client

[Caml-list] Questions about OCaml and google native client

[achrist]

I have just been reading about google native client, and it seems like it may
be a fun platform for which to write something.  OCaml looks like the best
language on there so far.  Questions about it:

1.  How alive is the project of supporting OCaml on google NACL?  The version
of OCaml supported there is 3.11 from what  I could find, several months behind
current release.  Anyone know if and when this will get brought up to date?

2.  Are there any particularly good OCaml programs now available that run in
google NACL?  Any nice ones available from the google app store?

3. Any other thoughts about the viability of this combination?

TIA very much,


Al

Re: [Caml-list] Questions about OCaml and google native client

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 07:45:21AM +0100, achrist@easystreet.net wrote:
> I have just been reading about google native client, and it seems like it may
> be a fun platform for which to write something.  OCaml looks like the best
> language on there so far.  Questions about it:
> 
> 1.  How alive is the project of supporting OCaml on google NACL?  The version
> of OCaml supported there is 3.11 from what  I could find, several months behind
> current release.  Anyone know if and when this will get brought up to date?
> 
> 2.  Are there any particularly good OCaml programs now available that run in
> google NACL?  Any nice ones available from the google app store?
> 
> 3. Any other thoughts about the viability of this combination?

I too am interested in the answers to these questions.

Presumably NaCL involves writing (or just modifying?) the code
generator in ocamlopt?

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat

Re: [Caml-list] Questions about OCaml and google native client

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 11:28:59PM +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 07:45:21AM +0100, achrist@easystreet.net wrote:
> > I have just been reading about google native client, and it seems
> > like it may be a fun platform for which to write something.  OCaml
> > looks like the best language on there so far.  Questions about it:

I guess I'll answer the questions, by looking at the code itself ...

> > 1.  How alive is the project of supporting OCaml on google NACL?

Not very alive, by the looks of it.  However ...

> > The version of OCaml supported there is 3.11 from what I could
> > find, several months behind current release.  Anyone know if and
> > when this will get brought up to date?

... the patch to ocamlopt is really small.  Possibly even a candidate
for going upstream.  So updating it to the latest OCaml 3.12 ought to
be very simple.

The current patch only implements the changes for i386.  For OCaml in
particular since 64 bit is so useful, it'd be nice to have an
equivalent patch for the x86-64 backend.  That's also probably not
hard, although the sandboxing techniques for i386 and x86-64 used by
NaCL are reportedly quite different.

> > 2.  Are there any particularly good OCaml programs now available
> > that run in google NACL?  Any nice ones available from the google
> > app store?

No idea ...

> > 3. Any other thoughts about the viability of this combination?

NaCL is a fantastic concept actually.  It's a bit of a shame that
other browser vendors seem to be steering clear, although there does
seem to be a plugin.

So having an OCaml backend (and other functional languages) is a
thoroughly good thing IMHO.  It could finally offer a clean break from
Javascript / targeting Javascript, while allowing web programs to run
at full speed and be written in reasonable languages.

A possible downside is current lack of portability to non-x86 &
non-ARM platforms.  (NaCL supports i386, x86-64 and ARM only).

Here's an introduction to how NaCL works:

http://research.google.com/pubs/archive/34913.pdf

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat