RE: [Caml-list] interest in a much simpler, but modern, Caml?

[Jon Harrop <jonathandeanharrop@googlemail.com>]

Ivan wrote:
> I have noted that there are now many implementation of OCaml. Namely :
> - caml light
> - jocaml
> - mincaml
> - your implementation ?
> etc.
>
> which means there is a lot of interest in implementing tools and runtimes
for ML. 

I'm not sure 3.5 implementations over 25 years is a "lot" of interest but
maybe if you add HLVM... ;-)

> Well, now I'm thinking that the community should start a project like
Parrot (with JIT optionally)
> but dedicated to ML.

I already did something like this called HLVM:

  http://www.ffconsultancy.com/ocaml/hlvm/

> The existing ocaml runtime is amazing but it's definitely not very
community friendly and is in my
> opinion a bit hard to understand given the scarcity of design documents.

Feel free to ask me anything about HLVM's design. We have a dedicated
mailing list:

  https://lists.forge.ocamlcore.org/pipermail/hlvm-list/

> A real community project with real documentation might be interesting for
teaching purposes but also
> in production environments.

HLVM might be interesting for teaching purposes because it is tiny (2kLOC)
and comprehensible whilst providing advanced features like JIT compilation
(for a native-code REPL!) and a multicore-capable garbage collector (in only
100LOC!). HLVM should also be suitable for production environments.

I had actually forgotten about the mincaml project but mincaml's front-end
with HLVM's back-end sounds like a match made in heaven...

Cheers,
Jon.