Re: [Caml-list] [ANN] The Missing Library

[Alain.Frisch@ens.fr]

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, John Goerzen wrote:

> Let me expand on this a bit.  It is clear that people are unsatisfied
> with the quality of the standard library and that others have been able
> to provide useful features (*cough* IPv6 and other basic Unix calls) far
> sooner than Inria has.  Why are you oppsed to this?

Please note that Unix is *not* part of the OCaml standard library. It is
just a library included in the standard distribution.

Maybe the situation would more clear if:
1] the standard library was called the bootstrap library;
2] other libraries were removed from the standard distribution (ok, maybe
   except dynlink, bigarray, threads which require some cooperaton with
   the compiler, AFAIK).

The relevant message in the thread Maxence makes reference to is probably:

  http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200403/msg00171.html


OCaml has a slow release cycle and the ocaml team wants to keep control
over the standard distribution. So, having most of the libraries outside
of this distribution is a good thing, provided there is a good package
manager (either system specific or OCaml oriented). This allows the
community to gain control over the libraries and have quicker release
cycles.


> There are some things that will work fine with a system such as GODI
> once it gets a little more mature.  My ConfigParser module, for
> instance, has no need to be in the standard library (OTOH, there's no
> need for it to be outside it either, but I don't care either way on that
> if GODI continues improving.)

GODI is a technical solution.

In order to develop something like a replacement for the standard library,
there need to be some cooperation between members of the community. From
what I have seen, the extlib projet (this one:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ocaml-lib/) has set up an informal
peer-review system, which is good. People interested in extending the
stdlib might want to join their effort (I'm personally quite happy
with the stdlib, I don't care writing three-liners functions several
times; I'd better see more libraries for higher level stuff such as
network protocols).

> But what about the C Extlib's expanded support for sockets and IPv6?

Seems that IPv6 support is already in the ocaml cvs...


-- Alain

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