Re: [Caml-list] Using dynlink (native code and byte code) for the build system

[Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>]

On Thursday 31 January 2008 14:59:28 Berke Durak wrote:
> Jon Harrop a écrit :
> > On Thursday 31 January 2008 14:49:44 Alain Frisch wrote:
> >> Berke Durak wrote:
> >>> Thank to Alain Frisch's natdynlink, it is now possible to dynamically
> >>> load native code plugins.
> >>
> >> Only on some platforms! Please don't make the availability of exotic
> >> features mandatory for the build system to work.
> >
> > FWIW, I think natdynlink should be a core feature of OCaml going forwards
> > because it is useful in so many circumstances
>
> I agree.  However such a build system will also work with bytecode, albeit
> at lower performance, on platforms not supporting natdynlink.  A build
> system is also not computationally too intensive, so it should be OK.

Good point. AMD64 gives far better performance than all other platforms anyway 
(AFAIK) so people should be using that if they want good performance anyway.

>  > not least the performant top-level.
>
> Natdynlink in the toplevel??

Alain wrote "ocamlnat", an OCaml top-level that uses compilation to native 
code (with dynamic linking) to provide performance competitive with other 
languages like Lisp and F#. I found this extremely useful for the few months 
that I used it, although it was a little buggy.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?e