Re: [Caml-list] Some comments on recent discussions

[Alain Frisch <alain@frisch.fr>]

On 12/14/2011 06:36 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
> I know, and this makes me quite optimistic that it is not that hard to
> develop standalone executables for the frequently used Unix utilities.

It's amazing how a discussion about simplifying the life for Windows 
users ends up with "let's emulate Unix under Windows"!

A few points:

1. It would be useful to have a completely standalone binary 
distribution of ocaml (with ocamlopt) under Windows. This can be 
achieved either with little development efforts by extracting the 
minimal needed subset of an mingw toolchain (an assembler, a linker, 
some libraries and object files to link the main program); or with a 
little bit more effort, by avoiding the need for an external toolchain 
altogether.  I insist: most users of OCaml under Windows won't need a C 
compiler or Unix-like tools.

2. Binary packages for OCaml libraries could be simple .zip files to be 
extracted at a precise place (under the hierarchy created by the OCaml 
binary installer itself); or maybe even Windows installers.  If 
installing a library only amounts to clicking on a link in a web page 
and run the installer, it already makes the life of the casual user much 
easier. We don't necessarily need a full-blown packaging system, with 
dependency tracking, versioning, automatic download, etc.

3. Binary packages are not created by casual users. It's not crazy to 
require, at least in the short term, a decent Unix-like environment 
(which includes a C compiler) in order to compile the libraries and 
create the binary packages. It would be nice to adapt all the OCaml 
libraries around so that they don't rely on external Unix tools, but 
this is simply not going to happen.

4. A small group of volunteers could identify the most important OCaml 
libraries around, make sure they compile fine under Windows, submit 
patches upstream if the build system needs to be adapted, and produce 
binary packages for these libraries.

5. What is important now is not to provide the ultimate package 
management system for OCaml under Windows.  We should focus instead on 
lowering the barrier for casual users, addressing justified complaints 
from beginners, making it easy to use OCaml for simple native projects 
under Windows or for porting OCaml applications developed initially for 
Unix.  My hope is that this will be enough to attract more "native" 
Windows users into OCaml, and then we (or they) can start thinking about 
more ambitious goals.



-- Alain