From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id VAA19171; Sun, 9 May 2004 21:48:41 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA19133 for ; Sun, 9 May 2004 21:48:40 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from mail.davidb.org (adsl-64-172-240-129.dsl.sndg02.pacbell.net [64.172.240.129]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i49JmcEV004577 for ; Sun, 9 May 2004 21:48:39 +0200 Received: from davidb by mail.davidb.org with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1BMuHl-0006Tx-00; Sun, 09 May 2004 12:48:29 -0700 Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 12:48:29 -0700 From: David Brown To: Jere Sanisalo Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml to C Message-ID: <20040509194829.GA24809@davidb.org> References: <200405072211.12238.jdh30@cam.ac.uk> <20040508213716.GA31881@complete.org> <20040509115000.A9300@xmunkki.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040509115000.A9300@xmunkki.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 409E8B16.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 caml-list:01 2004:99 runtimes:01 runtime:01 runtime:01 short-lived:01 compilers:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 garbage:01 garbage:01 native:02 collector:02 0300,:02 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Sun, May 09, 2004 at 11:50:00AM +0300, Jere Sanisalo wrote: > Because ocaml compilers/runtimes do not exist for every platform (say, > consoles). And because compiling to C code could allow you to write > independent libraries for others to use. The runtime is actually there for a reason. It is much of what makes ocaml, ocaml. Even if you could generate C code from ocaml (it probably wouldn't be very good, unless you did lots of non-compiler-portable tricks like GHC), it would still need the same kind of runtime. Ocaml programs generate a lot of short-lived garbage. Without a garbage collector, the program would eat up a lot of memory. The native code runtime isn't very big. I think effort would be better spent porting the runtime to these new platforms. Dave Brown ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners