Re: [Caml-list] How to refactor a large Ocaml program

[Yann Coscoy <Yann.Coscoy@trusted-logic.fr>]

Jon Harrop a écrit :
> On Wednesday 13 December 2006 14:00, Yann Coscoy wrote:
>> And if these tools do not exists it is not because nobody need nor want
>> them. It is because it requires a huge effort to have good ones. And
>> nobody has done is effort yet.
> 
> I don't think it would be a huge effort to write refactoring tools for OCaml. 
> Indeed, I've propose this idea for F#. The hard part is writing the lexer and 
> parser, which is already found in the front end of the compiler (albeit 
> without parsing of comments). Then you're just rewriting an AST, which is a 
> piece of cake in ML. :-)
> 

I don't think either that it is difficult to write a refactoring tools
for OCaml. But I still believe it is would be huge effort to have a
*good* tool to do it.

When I say a good tool, I think of something user-friendly, with nice
interface (graphical or not)... In a word something that would convince
you to use it instead of search/replace under emacs (or vi).

The hard part is not writing the lexer and the parser, the hard part is
 to make some environment to interact with the developer.


    Yann Coscoy