Re: [Caml-list] ocaml and large development projects

[John Max Skaller <skaller@ozemail.com.au>]

Chris Hecker wrote:

> 
>> > Uh, isn't this a major flaw in the compiler?  Why does this happen?
>> Inlining.  Inlining is an important optimization, especially for
>> functional languages, where many functions are typically short.
> 
> 
> Sure, but there has to be a better way to do this than forcing a 
> recompile of the entire program when you change a debug print in your 
> lowest level completely encapsulated library.  That's insanely bad 
> software engineering, and this is a huge issue.  


No it isn't. With due respect, Chris, you come
from the C++ world where compiles take an hour,
the NFS service is screwed, and everyone is
alway rebuilding everying in a totally
unmodular fashion.

So you are expecting poor performance where it
simply doesn't exist.

This is not C++ where you #include the whole
of the standard library and half the rest
of the world in every small translation
unit and have to recompile the interface
from TEXT every time.

This is Ocaml where you can selectively include
module interfaces which have been already compiled.
So compiles of tranlsation units (ml files)
are very very fast because 90% of the work
a C++ compiler does is recompile the same thing
over and over again ......

Added to that Ocaml has a simpler language
structure, and doesn't need to instantiate
10000 templates ..

Trust me. Don't worry about it!
The existing compiler performance optimisations
and separate compilation model have superb performance
from an engineering viewpoint (if there is a weakness
it is in the unexpected slowness of inference of
some nasty types, which occasionally bites you)


-- 
John Max Skaller, mailto:skaller@ozemail.com.au
snail:10/1 Toxteth Rd, Glebe, NSW 2037, Australia.
voice:61-2-9660-0850


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