RE: [Caml-list] Interactive technical computing

[skaller <skaller@users.sourceforge.net>]

On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 15:26 -0600, Robert Fischer wrote:
> > Putting aside the obvious cultural resistance to using a sensible
> > language for this project, there is one technical hurdle: It needs to
> > compile into a DLL which can be linked to other programs (in C and
> > other languages).  I can't generate such code using ocamlopt, at least
> > not without using unsupported out-of-tree extensions.
> >
> I don't think this is a real hurdle to general adoption of a language.

It is in fact an utter and complete show stopper.
I've spent 6 years developing Felix precisely to solve this
problem: a high level language that can generate shared libraries
which can use and be used by other shared libraries.

Ocaml is great for stand-alone programs but a significant
fraction of software development is library building,
and Linux distros such as those based on Debian provide
a library component model which demands dynamic linkage
so the components can be upgraded without end user recompilation.

I expect this will eventually be solved too.

> After all, Java and C# aren't intended to be used like that, yet they
> certainly have wide-spread adoption.

They don't make binary shared libraries
because the architecture is a virtual machine driven by
bytecode .. they DO make dynamically linkable bytecode
libraries.


-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net