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 PAA28542; Sat, 2 Mar 2002 15:46:56 +0100 (MET) 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 PAA29203 for ; Sat, 2 Mar 2002 15:46:55 +0100 (MET) Received: from nef.ens.fr (nef.ens.fr [129.199.96.32]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g22Ektb21656 for ; Sat, 2 Mar 2002 15:46:55 +0100 (MET) Received: from clipper.ens.fr (clipper-gw.ens.fr [129.199.1.22]) by nef.ens.fr (8.10.1/1.01.28121999) with ESMTP id g22Ektp52251 ; Sat, 2 Mar 2002 15:46:55 +0100 (CET) Received: from localhost (frisch@localhost) by clipper.ens.fr (8.9.2/jb-1.1) id PAA03770 ; Sat, 2 Mar 2002 15:46:54 +0100 (MET) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 15:46:54 +0100 (MET) From: Alain Frisch To: Mattias Waldau cc: Caml list Subject: Re: [Caml-list] The DLL-hell of O'Caml In-Reply-To: <014901c1c1bf$ebb29c30$0700a8c0@gateway> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Sat, 2 Mar 2002, Mattias Waldau wrote: > The above history is the reason I started using the CDK, > in many cases using libraries that depend on other > libraries is almost impossible without the CDK. Too much > time is spent on downloading and compiling. A related issue is independance w.r.t OCaml version; if you want to try a new OCaml release or CVS version, it is necessary to rebuild all the libraries. For instance, I now have three OCaml versions installed (3.04, 3.04+7 and 3.04+6 polymorphic methods), and it is a pain to maintain three library trees. Similarly, when you upgrade a library, you also have to rebuild all the libraries that depend on it. Some kind of automatization in the process would be great. > I know 3 solutions to the problem: > 1. CDK > 2. Gerd invented findlib to solve the above problem. > 3. Adding good packages to the standard distribution, > so that mostly packages doesn't depend on other > packages, but on packages in the standard > distribution. (But very few if any new packages > are added to the distribution.) The monolithic and centralized approach of CDK does not seem to scale well. Findlib does a good job. It would be great to have such a tool (findlib or a clone, but why not findlib ?) in the standard distribution... > We need a solution. Maybe a CPAN-like solution? Indeed, the new packaging facility in OCaml (-pack option, which glues together a set of modules and allows decent namespace management) opens the door to this kind of project. > In the Ocaml-CPAN it could either be source code, or > compile binaries (I can live without native code, at > least when experimenting with other peoples libraries.) An intermediate solution would be to distribute so-called "lambda-code", that is the internal representation used in OCaml compilers just before code production. The advantage is that it is common to bytecode and native back-end, and it should be possible to design an upward-compatible (w.r.t OCaml version) concrete representation of this code. -- Alain ------------------- 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