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 OAA08426; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:47:22 +0100 (MET) 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 OAA08279 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:47:16 +0100 (MET) Received: from smtp.uc3m.es (smtp03.uc3m.es [163.117.136.123]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id h1LDlGH23255 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:47:16 +0100 (MET) Received: from smtp03.uc3m.es (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.uc3m.es (Postfix) with ESMTP id D90B2431DA for ; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:47:15 +0100 (CET) Received: from alcaudon.tsc.uc3m.es (alcaudon.tsc.uc3m.es [163.117.145.35]) by smtp03.uc3m.es (Postfix) with ESMTP id C142599EA2 for ; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:47:15 +0100 (CET) Received: from tsc.uc3m.es ([163.117.145.58]) by alcaudon.tsc.uc3m.es (Netscape Messaging Server 4.15) with ESMTP id HANVMQ00.221; Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:47:14 +0100 Message-ID: <3E562F68.50503@tsc.uc3m.es> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 14:53:44 +0100 From: fva User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020828 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Stefano Zacchiroli Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml standard library improvement References: <20030218180341.GA267@first.in-berlin.de> <20030220104343.B27056@pauillac.inria.fr> <20030220165448.GD5717@lordsoth.takhisis.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk HI all, plese read on below Zacchiroli's suggestions... Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: >On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 10:43:43AM +0100, Xavier Leroy wrote: > > >>There would be disagreement as what the return type of these functions >>should be: lists, sets, etc. But you can easily write them with >>Hashtbl.fold. >> >> > >Yes, the ocaml standard library is full (i.e. empty) of a lot of >functions that could be written easily in 1 or 2 lines of ocaml code. > >The same functions are the same that you find yourself rewriting in all >the applications you are writing (or linking an "helper" module written >once for all), this is really frustrating and I think make OCaml >standard library less appealing than other languages standard libraries. > >I'm collecting from time to time a set of functions that can be easily >added to the standard library to fill this gap. Probably a lot of other >OCaml programmers are doing the same. Is there any chance to see this >functions in the standard library? > >Better stated: if we, ocaml programmer, collect a set of functions that >are widely felt to be missing, could the OCaml team review the >corresponding implementation and add them to the ocaml standard library >in the next ocaml release? > I think collecting these functions is a great idea and it might enhance the usability of our favourite language (I have conflicting emotions about this claim being true. Still...). But if *we* (I am including all OCaml programmers here) think it worth building such a library, why bother the OCaml team by piling *more* work on them? As somebody in this lists has pointed out, they are already doing *harder* work on the (may I have my interest included here) module recursion problem & downcasts and whatnot and I trust their capability (and willingness) to work in whatever problems they think it worth. Why not (self?)appoint, say, three persons (I don't care about many more with decision power to come to an agreement about anything) to receive would-be code and maintain a "big-s(c)ale library"... This may find its way into the Standard library or it may not, but would definitely make happy all these people wanting to contribute differentially to the whole OCaml effort... Just an idea... Something to discuss... Regards, Fran Valverde ------------------- 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