[MLton] upcoming release

[skaller]

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On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 16:01 -0700, Stephen Weeks wrote:
> It has been quite a while since our last release, so I would like to
> do a new one.  There aren't any huge new features, but we have
> accumulated a number of bugfixes, as well as some small improvements:
>=20
>  * better exception history
>  * libraries: Int1, MLton.CallStack, MLton.Process.create, Word1
>  * FFI improvements: support for symbols
>=20
> There is also a big improvement on the licensing front, as MLton will
> now be released under a BSD-ish license instead of the GPL.  That
> alone is worth a new release in my opinion.

:-)

> Two platforms that I'd like to see in the release are not yet working.
>=20
>  * Cygwin 1.5.18-1
>  * MinGW

.. and x86_64 .. :))

> The biggest open question in my mind for the release is what to do
> about documentation.=20

FYI Felix supports several formats and it is a PAIN!

The format with the most support is probably XML,
which unfortunately isn't in itself usable,
however XML -> HTML probably isn't hard.
However I don't do any XML .. :)

Using XML has the advantage other formats can eventually
be supported using translators built using commonly available
toolkits.

It has the disadvantage that you're forced to fix the DTD
so this can be done, whereas with HTML you can rely on
human intelligence to gather the meaning from the
presentation.

Whatever decision I'm very interested in hearing the arguments
and conclusion for my own project.

One idea: provide HTML stylised like XML to ease future migration
to XML, whilst still allowing the content to be presented without
an overly formal structure.

BTW: It is tempting to use LaTeX, since there are lots of
nice tools for format conversion from it -- however despite
the fine typesetting quality obtainable, its ability to
support hyperlinking and dynamic views seems rather too=20
restricted to me for modern systems.

BTW2: one idea: I use a literate programming tool, and I=20
find the document called 'tutorial' is also the software
called 'regression test suite': nice to have well documented
tests .. and tutorial examples which are sure to run as
written and which provide good coverage.

--=20
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sourceforge dot net>


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