Re: [Caml-list] Accelerating compilation

[Adrien Nader <adrien@notk.org>]

On Mon, Sep 09, 2013, Alain Frisch wrote:
> On 09/06/2013 06:30 PM, Xavier Leroy wrote:
> >- Make sure the .opt compilers (ocamlc.opt, ocamlopt.opt) are
> >   installed.  They are significantly faster than their non-.opt
> >   counterparts, and some Linux distros package the .opt compilers
> >   separately and don't install them by default.
> 
> Shouldn't we change the official installation procedure (from
> sources), so that the .opt compilers are installed as "ocamlc" and
> "ocamlopt" (not "ocamlc.opt", "ocamlopt.opt") when they are
> available?  And suggest to do the same for distribution packages?
> It would make the life of other projects easier if they could just
> call "ocamlc" without having to check if "ocamlc.opt" is available
> or not.
> 
> Or are there compelling arguments in favor of using the bytecode
> version of ocamlc/ocamlopt?

That sounds like the wrong place to fix this and a possible
incompatibility with quite a lot of code. Ocamlfind already handles it
nicely; the only thing missing is configuration.

Such things depend distribution policies. Bytecode is often smaller or
maybe that the native code generation for a given platform fails in a
subtle way.

If you make the .opt version unavailable, you'll break several build
scripts which don't use ocamlfind. You'll also break ocamlfind installs
which are set to use the .opt versions. You could make a symlink but
that won't work on Windows and I'm sure there will be many more issues.

Moreover, after having spent pretty much all my free time during the
past 3 months in the build system of the compiler, I strongly believe
that the fewer changes happen there, the better (when talking about my
sanity at least :) ).

Btw, considering that cross-compilation support will be in trunk very
soon, it's better not to assume anything about what's installed and rely
blindly on ocamlfind calling the right binaries (that or autotools).

-- 
Adrien Nader