Re: [Caml-list] 20th anniversary

[Hongbo Zhang <bobzhang1988@gmail.com>]

Hi Xavier,
    Thanks for making such a great language, I am as young as you were 
20 years ago, you are my role model :-)
On 9/12/15 4:04 AM, Xavier Leroy wrote:
> Twenty years ago to this day, on Sept 12th 1995, the mail below announced
> the availability of Caml Special Light 1.06.  This was the first public
> release of the programming language and system that was to become Objective
> Caml, then OCaml.
>
> All the Caml Special Light language design is still there today in OCaml;
> likewise, parts of the implementation are clearly recognizable in the latest
> OCaml sources.  However, in 20 years, the language picked up many language
> features that were open research problems in 1995, such as objects and
> classes with type inference, polymorphic variants, first-class polymorphism,
> and first-class modules.  Likewise, the implementation, initially targeted
> to Unix workstations, is now running on an amazing variety of platforms,
> from $35 Raspberry Pi to mainframes with 1 TB of RAM to cloud distributed
> systems.
>
> The most spectacular evolution of those 20 years is certainly the growth of
> the user's community and programming ecosystem.  Many application areas of
> OCaml were not expected, such as financial applications and systems
> programming; others, such as Web programming and bioinformatics, did not
> even exist in 1995.  Likewise, the amount of freely available libraries,
> programming tools, programming environments, teaching material, and
> infrastructure (OPAM & the Platform) is well beyond my wildest dreams of the
> time.  A big "thank you" to the great many people who contributed to this
> success!
>
> Far from slowing down, OCaml's development has been picking up momentum
> recently.  The next 20 years of OCaml will be exciting indeed!
>
> - Xavier Leroy, on behalf of the core Caml development team
>
>
> From: Xavier Leroy <xleroy@pauillac.inria.fr>
> Message-Id: <199509120927.LAA00417@pauillac.inria.fr>
> Subject: Release 1.06 of Caml Special Light
> To: caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr
> Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 11:27:13 +0200 (MET DST)
>
> Announcing Caml Special Light 1.06, the first public release of the
> Caml Special Light system.
>
> Caml Special Light is a complete reimplementation of Caml Light that
> adds a powerful module system in the style of Standard ML. The module
> system is based on the notion of manifest types / translucent sums; it
> supports Modula-style separate compilation, and fully transparent
> higher-order functors (see the papers in the POPL 94 and 95
> proceedings).
>
> Caml Special Light comprises two compilers: a bytecode compiler in the
> style of Caml Light (but up to twice as fast), and a high-performance
> native code compiler for the following platforms:
>
>          Alpha processors: DecStation 3000 under OSF1
>          Sparc processors: Sun Sparcstation under SunOS 4.1 or Solaris 2
>          Intel 386 / 486 / Pentium processors: PCs under Linux
>          Mips processors: DecStation 3100 and 5000 under Ultrix 4
>
> The native-code compiler delivers excellent performance (better than
> Standard ML of New Jersey 1.08 on our tests), while retaining the
> moderate memory requirements of the bytecode compiler.
>
> Caml Special Light is still in the experimental state: the base
> language has changed and will change again in significant ways,
> source-level compatibility is not ensured, the implementation is
> alpha-release quality, and many Caml Light tools and libraries have
> not yet been ported to Caml Special Light. The present release is
> targeted towards testers, adventurous souls, and users with strong
> interest in modules and high-performance compilation; other users are
> encouraged to stay with Caml Light 0.7 for a while.
>
> The source distribution (for Unix machines only) is available by
> anonymous FTP on ftp.inria.fr, directory lang/caml-light.
>
> More information on Caml Special Light is available on the World Wide
> Web, at http://pauillac.inria.fr/csl/.
>
> Bug reports and technical questions should be directed to
> caml-light@pauillac.inria.fr. For general questions and comments,
> use the Caml mailing list caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr (to subscribe:
> caml-list-request@pauillac.inria.fr).
>
> - Xavier Leroy
>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> % Caml Special Light                  "Taste Caml in a whole new Light" %
> % caml-light@pauillac.inria.fr                                          %
> % Projet Cristal, INRIA, B.P.105, 78153 Le Chesnay, France.             %
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
>
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