Re: [Caml-list] About the O'Reilly book on the web

[Philippe Wang <lists@philippewang.info>]

Hello,

> You can't make things better without making them different. OCaml is 
> about being better, and so is the syntax I chose for regexps. It is fully
> compatible with the syntax used by ocamllex, and I must say ocamllex 
> regexps are incredibly easy to learn and to use. I never had any problem 
> with them. In comparison Str or PCRE regexps are truly horrible.

Maybe if regexps are taken to first class values (at least in the 
syntax, whatever what is done behind...), like in Perl, then it'll be 
easily usable. Well, I will look with more attention to micmatch, maybe 
it's actually really easy to handle it.

I will think about it when I have time for that.

> I don't think that those people would be more satisfied with another 
> syntax anyway, because OCaml would still be different! It's just that 
> average people are afraid of anything that is different from what they 
> already know.

In deed, you're probably right. Still I hope not.


> OK. Here is what I propose to whoever thinks OCaml's syntax is not good: 
> give me a *complete* description of the syntax that you want and I'll 
> implement it.

That's really hard :-D

I like the OCaml syntax very much (I must be crazy :-D)
(but definitely not the one of "Camlp4 Chapter 6 : The Revised syntax")


--
Philippe Wang