mosml as a front end for MLton

[Claudio Russo]

Hi Stephen,

>I just attempted to compile MLton using mosml (with some appropriate stubs 
>for
>different basis libraries).  The sources consist of 381 files, the largest 
>of
>which is about 4,200 lines, with a total of about 60,000 lines.  I have let 
>it
>run for about 4.5 hours.  At this point the process size is about 280M and 
>about
>200 files have been processed.  The directory containing the .ui and .ui 
>files
>is about 300M, almost all due to .ui files.

Oh dear, I've been thinking about this problem and will try to solve it, but 
I can't promise anything soon.

>The slowdowns and large sizes are almost certainly due to signature
>representation.  The programming style used in MLton will lead to very 
>large
>representations if not enough sharing is done.  I know there are hacks in
>SML/NJ's and MLton's elaborators to share whenever possible.  These are
>sufficient to make compiling MLton practical.  I agree with your assessment 
>that
>you need some more work on mosml's elaborator to improve this.

Perhaps I should study these hacks --- are they the ones Shao describes in 
his paper?

>So, my conclusion is for now that it is infeasible to use the mosml 
>frontend for
>MLton.  But we'll see if sometime in the future it becomes possible.

Sure thing, its ok for smallish projects for now, which is why we released 
it.

BTW, why do you want to use the mosml front-end --- what advantages does it 
offer you?

Thanks for persevering,
Claudio
-c
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