Re : [Caml-list] OCaml version 3.11.0+beta1

[Adrien <camaradetux@gmail.com>]

2008/10/16, Alain Frisch <alain@frisch.fr>:
> David Allsopp wrote:
>> There seems to be an interesting chicken-and-egg source dependency between
>> flexdll and OCaml 3.11 - you can't build OCaml 3.11 from source or use it
>> afterwards without flexdll and you can't build flexdll from source without
>> OCaml. Doesn't that suggest a binary copy of flexdll should be included in
>> OCaml's boot directory? All of the other *binary* dependencies for Windows
>> OCaml don't require OCaml themselves... just a thought!
>
> You're right about the circular dependency, but the answer is much
> simpler than for the chicken-and-egg question: OCaml came first.
> I don't see a compelling reason to include a binary version of flexdll
> in the OCaml distribution. Just consider flexdll as an external
> dependency that comes in binary form (like the MS C compiler). It just
> happens to be produced by the OCaml compiler.
>
> Note that flexlink.exe can be compiler with an old OCaml compiler. Also,
> if you insist to bootstrap everything, it shouldn't be too difficult to
> get a minimal (=no dynamic linking of external C code) ocamlrun.exe for
> 3.11 that does not require flexlink.
>

How often should we expect new releases of flexlink ? Basically, the
question is : will it have to be updated from time to time or can we
just drop it somewhere and forget everything about it ?


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Adrien Nader