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 IAA18829; Mon, 17 May 2004 08:09:23 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA17587 for ; Mon, 17 May 2004 08:09:22 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from plover.csun.edu (plover.csun.edu [130.166.1.24]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i4H69KEV009331 for ; Mon, 17 May 2004 08:09:21 +0200 Received: from puffin.csun.edu (puffin.csun.edu [130.166.1.21]) by plover.csun.edu (MOS 3.4.6-GR) with ESMTP id BDR00224 for ; Sun, 16 May 2004 23:09:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [10.0.0.220] (cpe-24-31-48-47.socal.rr.com [24.31.48.47]) by puffin.csun.edu (MOS 3.4.4-GR) with ESMTP id BTF35242 (AUTH eric) for ; Sun, 16 May 2004 23:09:18 -0700 (PDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v613) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed To: caml-list@inria.fr From: Eric Stokes Subject: [Caml-list] Ocaml shared libraries Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 23:09:13 -0700 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.613) X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 40A85710.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; nightmare:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 recompile:01 imho:01 shop:98 executables:01 linking:02 interface:03 library:03 library:03 rebuild:03 shared:05 shared:05 static:06 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk Hello All, As the director of a shop who is using Ocaml to do real work (yes I know, research is more important :P), I would really like to be able to build a shared library out of code that I have written in Ocaml, and link other Ocaml programs to it. There are practical reasons for wanting to do this, I write and maintain some rather large systems written in Ocaml. Currently, whenever I update a library (not changing its interface), I need to recompile and reinstall the entire system. These problems I can live with for now. But... I also have "delusions" (or so I'm told). IMHO, Ocaml is fast enough, and has enough good libraries in existence to create a climate where Ocaml software will slowly start replacing software written in C. I've been watching the building blocks go into place for six months now, and things look like they are accelerating. As the number of libraries, and applications using them increases, static linking starts to become a nightmare very quickly. If you were, for example, to build a desktop environment in Ocaml, you'd have to rebuild the entire system every time you changed a core library. And, all the little executables in the desktop would be HUGE. I think that Ocaml is a very good language (understatement) for building large reliable systems, and I would hate to see its growth be hampered artificially by its lack of shared libraries. Eric Stokes Middleware Technical Lead California State University, Northridge ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners