Re: [Caml-list] [ANN] Base, Stdio and Jbuilder 0.1.alpha1

[Jeremie Dimino <jdimino@janestreet.com>]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 4:26 PM, Malcolm Matalka <mmatalka@gmail.com> wrote:
> What's the relationship between Base and Core?  is this another std
> library in the mix or does it replace Core as a stdlib alternative?

Core is a richer stdlib that supersedes Base. More precisely,
Core_kernel supersedes Base and Core supersedes Core_kernel.
Core_kernel adds bin_prot as well as some other features that are not
necessarily as general purpose than what is in Base. Core adds less
portable features and depends on Unix.

But the main difference between Base and Core_kernel is that Base
comes first in the dependency graph. In particular, we can't use
Core_kernel in sexplib, bin_prot or any ppx rewriter used in
Core_kernel. As a result we end up reimplementing the same functions
over and over again. Moreover improvements to Core_kernel don't
benefit sexplib or bin_prot. Now everything has the same base.

Given that Base has much less dependencies than Core_kernel, it should
also be more attractive to people who want to keep a low number of
dependencies.

-- 
Jeremie