[MLton-devel] hello

[Jesper Louis Andersen]

Quoting Stephen Weeks (sweeks@sweeks.com):
> 
> > Just thought of a question for you, actually.  How does SML compiled with 
> > MLton compare to OCaML?  I haven't used OCaML, but I get the impression 
> > from some that it's more widely used, liked, etc.  What's your take?
> 
> I'll let the other readers of this list chime in with additional
> thoughts.
> 

I have a single big concern for OCaml. The language is not semantically
defined. What I like about SML is that in 10 years my SML programs will
probably still work and I will still be able to find a compiler which
adheres to the SML standard. There might have been developed new
versions, like SML-2008, but I think this is to the advantage of the
language to have a proven, mathematical definition. 

Furthermore, Ocaml seems a bit more like a test-bed, than a defined language. 
Dont get me wrong, research is good, but you cannot rely on research for
your stable programs since your depended feature might be gone in the
next release. So actually I dont think that added expressivity buys you
anything.

SML has problems. Andrew Appel identified some of them in a paper a
couple of years ago and I agree with him on many points. Yet those
problems are not so big that they become a concern in reality. Most 
languages have hard edges and compared to peoples affinity to eg C or
Perl, these problems seems to be small.

And no, I havent forgot the NetBSD port altogether. Though I think it is
best to create a tar-ball which we can bootstrap the compiler from. So
the NetBSD port will download this bootstrapping tar-ball and build
itself from that. This means it will be enabled when the next release
of NetBSD hits the shelves. Stephen, do you have an estimate, or hasnt
the project reached a point where you have an idea of a given release
date?

-- 
j. - which spends too much time reading denotational semantics and
     domain theory and too little time hacking SML ;)



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