Re: beginning with ML

Jon:
Vesa Karvonen wrote:
Jon:
Vesa Karvonen wrote:
I've tried O'Caml. That was many years ago. It kept dumping core and
going into infinite loops.

What did you write?

My first O'Caml project was a (simple) compiler for an ML-style (H-M
type inference, GC, variant types, ...) scripting language design.

Did you ask for help with your dumping core problem?

I asked help with the going into an infinite loop problem. I think I
ran into that in unit test code --- not in the compiler proper. I'm
sure you can find my name from the O'Caml mailing list archives.

However, probably the most important thing I noticed during that
period was that fixing problems in O'Caml was not a priority to the
developers. For example, I noticed issues in ocamllex/ocamlyacc.
They used global parser state at the time --- probably still do ---
and that there was no convenient syntax for threading state
(functionally). Some guy (I forget the name, just google) ---
actually, I think there were *two* guys, independently of each other
--- had already written fixes for those problems, but the O'Caml
developers just ignored the patch(es). I also noticed the protective
and restrictive licensing of O'Caml:

http://camlcvs.inria.fr/cgi-bin/cvsweb/~checkout~/ocaml/LICENSE?rev=1.17.4.3.2.1;content-type=text%2Fplain

O'Caml's license prevents other people from distributing patched
versions of O'Caml. It looked like to me that O'Caml was going
nowhere and that its developers did not appreciate the efforts of
others to improve the situation. In fact, I was totally right!
Having checked just now, ocamlyacc still seems to use global state.
You know, therein lies a design flaw! Oh, boy! The future of O'Caml
looks awfully bad and there doesn't seem to be any kind of progress
forward. I really prefer much more robust, better designed, and
engineered languages than O'Caml. With O'Caml you get the worst of
all world.

Trust me, I haven't even nearly exhausted my list of concerning
problems of social kind with the development of O'Caml or badly
designed and engineered aspects of the O'Caml language. And the best
part is that all of it is true. Until now, I've just preferred to try
and be fair. That is over now.

-Vesa Karvonen
.

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