From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id LAA06535; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:05 +0100 (MET) Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA04529 for ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:04 +0100 (MET) Received: from uni-sb.de (uni-sb.de [134.96.252.33]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g0FAm4b02949 for ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:04 +0100 (MET) Received: from cs.uni-sb.de (cs.uni-sb.de [134.96.252.31]) by uni-sb.de (8.12.2/2002011500) with ESMTP id g0FAm3w28430 for ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:03 +0100 (CET) Received: from mail.cs.uni-sb.de (IDENT:oHy1mEPN0pnIeo/xaxGhSGykrsBhc/Js@mail.cs.uni-sb.de [134.96.254.200]) by cs.uni-sb.de (8.12.1/2001121800) with ESMTP id g0FAm2S21375 for ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:02 +0100 (CET) Received: from ps.uni-sb.de (grizzly.ps.uni-sb.de [134.96.186.68]) by mail.cs.uni-sb.de (8.12.2/2002011500) with ESMTP id g0FAm1Y10027 for ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:01 +0100 (CET) X-Authentication-Warning: email: Host grizzly.ps.uni-sb.de [134.96.186.68] claimed to be ps.uni-sb.de Received: from ps.uni-sb.de (zoidberg.ps.uni-sb.de [134.96.186.121]) by ps.uni-sb.de (8.11.2/8.11.0) with ESMTP id g0FAm0d02499; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:00 +0100 Message-ID: <3C4408E0.EB34C3B2@ps.uni-sb.de> Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:48:00 +0100 From: Andreas Rossberg Organization: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Universit=E4t?= des Saarlandes X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.3-12 i686) X-Accept-Language: de, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] More OCaml+windowing system questions References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk "Walter B. Rader" wrote: > > However, C and C++ are extremely portable, which is very > appealing to me. Sorry, I cannot resist commenting on that particular statement, because it still seems to be such a frighteningly common misconception. This statement confuses two issues: portability and availability. C certainly is available on pretty much every system. But this says nothing about portability of C code - C and C++ are definitely among the least portable languages in use today. There effectively is no non-trivial C program that is portable according to the language standard (ie. does not explore undefined/unspecified behaviour one way or the other - most times you are not even aware). This is in stark contrast to high-level languages like OCaml, which are clearly not as widely available, but which have mostly system-independent and fully specified semantics[*]. So portability rates very high. Best regards, - Andreas [*] Not completely true for OCaml - consider eg. evaluation order - but still a vanishingly small issue compared to C. -- Andreas Rossberg, rossberg@ps.uni-sb.de "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we would all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills, and listening to repetitive electronic music." - Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc. ------------------- Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr