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 XAA15599; Sun, 1 Apr 2001 23:15:51 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id XAA15662 for caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr; Sun, 1 Apr 2001 23:15:51 +0200 (MET DST) 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 FAA14935 for ; Sat, 31 Mar 2001 05:40:42 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from nyc.rr.com (nycsmtp3fb.rdc-nyc.rr.com [24.29.99.80]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id f2V3edf04248 for ; Sat, 31 Mar 2001 05:40:39 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from dragonfly.localdomain ([24.29.113.173]) by nyc.rr.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.357.35); Fri, 30 Mar 2001 22:43:39 -0500 Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 22:40:33 -0500 (EST) From: "Yaron M. Minsky" X-Sender: To: Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Future of labels Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk I make heavy use of labels in classic mode both for the extra type safety it provides and for documentation. I find it to be extremely useful, and would be sad to see classic mode go. I've never felt a great need for commuting of non-optional arguments. LablTk, at least, seemed quite usable in classic mode. The idea of stripping labels out of the standard library seems like a mistake. The main thing I like about labels is the extra safety they provide. For example, the ~key and ~data labels for the function in Map's iter is very useful, particularly when the key and data happen to be the same type. I agree that having ocaml have one standard mode would be best, if possible. If there continue to be two modes, I am strongly in favor of a pragma for specifying the mode on a file-by-file basis. I guess my ideal solution would be to have classic mode (or some sound version of it) be the standard. I see no great value in commuting labels for non-optional arguments (though I understand many disagree) and allowing novices to ignore labels alltogether is enormously important --- ML is weird enough for someone schooled in imperative languages, without needing to understand labels as well. (On another note, it would be lovely if one of these days ocaml could move to something like the alternative syntax shipped with camlp4. There are a number of bits of the caml syntax that are quite counterintuitive, most of which are fixed with the alternative syntax.) y -- |--------/ Yaron M. Minsky \--------| |--------\ http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/yminsky/ /--------| OpenPGP Key at http://keyserver.pgp.com - KeyID 0x91F2C47C Key Fingerprint: 6838 FF4E 256C BD24 453E 6EEA 0FBE 6CF8 91F2 C47C ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr. Archives: http://caml.inria.fr