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 AAA19372; Tue, 5 Feb 2002 00:04:46 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA21172 for ; Tue, 5 Feb 2002 00:04:44 +0100 (MET) Received: from saul.cis.upenn.edu (SAUL.CIS.UPENN.EDU [158.130.12.4]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g14N4h118785 for ; Tue, 5 Feb 2002 00:04:43 +0100 (MET) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by saul.cis.upenn.edu (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id g14N4Vd04683; Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:04:31 -0500 (EST) To: Chris Hecker cc: Markus Mottl , Mattias Waldau , caml-list@inria.fr Reply-to: bcpierce@cis.upenn.edu Subject: Re: [Caml-list] syntax change (was: camlp4o problem) In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 04 Feb 2002 14:52:29 -0800. <4.3.2.7.2.20020204144529.037923f0@arda.pair.com> Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 18:04:31 EST Message-ID: <4681.1012863871@saul.cis.upenn.edu> From: "Benjamin C. Pierce" Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk > I think you rarely get a chance to change major things, and so you > should take the opportunity before it's too late. I would support such > a change if the team wanted to do it. I don't think they should do it > lightly, obviously, but I also don't think they should be terrified of > a change like this either. Decide what's best for the future of caml, > weighing user pain (but not overly strongly) and cleanliness benefit, > and make a decision. [Wearing my computer-science-educator hat...] I *do* think the OCaml team should be terrified of syntax changes. At this stage, one of the things that is most hampering the spread of OCaml, particularly in educational settings, is the dearth of books. If incompatible changes are not kept to a minimum, no one will want to write any, and the few that do get written will quickly go out of date. B ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. BENJAMIN C. PIERCE Dept. of Computer & Information Science bcpierce@cis.upenn.edu University of Pennsylvania +1 215 898-2012 200 South 33rd St. Fax: +1 215 898-0587 Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------- 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