lazyness in ocaml (was : [Caml-list] kprintf with user formatters)

["Daniel Bünzli" <daniel.buenzli@epfl.ch>]

Le 21 juil. 04, à 17:52, Pierre Weis a écrit :

> The drawback is that you would have to write (lazy expr)
> for each argument ``expr'' to be printed. Quite a bit intrusive, I 
> think.
I agree. I once tried to port some haskell combinators [1] to ocaml. 
However I had to stop since using them meant cluttering your code with 
(lazy e) and lead to unreadable code.

A more lightweight notation would be needed in order to do real lazy 
programming in ocaml. At that time I wondered if specifiying the 
lazyness when one defines the function and not when one uses it would 
be a problem (I mean a technical problem, not an ideological one).
For example if one defines

let f (lazy x) = ...

then the application f (x + y) would implicitely mean f (lazy (x + y)). 
Alternatively something less intrusive than the keyword 'lazy' would be 
good.

Daniel

[1] <http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/944705.944727>

-------------------
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