Wishlist!

Wishlist!

[David McClain]

Gee, OCAML is such a pleasure to use, and invariably, when I have a bug, =
it turns out to be in my external C routines. It sure would be nice if =
OCAML is someday extended to support a wider variety of datatypes (e.g., =
bytes, shorts, longs, floats, etc.) so that I can just skip this =
wasteful practice of coding in C. We could then enjoy using OCAML for =
all the systems level programming chores that plague us on a daily =
basis!

I still can't get over the amazement I have when, after making =
substantial architectural changes to existing code, that it works so =
well and without any bugs! I have never seen anything quite like it =
before!


David McClain
Sr. Scientist
Raytheon Missile Systems Co.
Tucson, AZ
http://www.azstarnet.com/~dmcclain/homepage.htm

Re: Wishlist!

[Brian Rogoff]

On Sun, 31 Jan 1999, David McClain wrote:

> Gee, OCAML is such a pleasure to use, and invariably, when I have a bug, 
> it turns out to be in my external C routines. It sure would be nice if
> OCAML is someday extended to support a wider variety of datatypes (e.g.,
> bytes, shorts, longs, floats, etc.) so that I can just skip this wasteful
> practice of coding in C. We could then enjoy using OCAML for all the
> systems level programming chores that plague us on a daily basis!

Since library discussions are the topic of the day here, let me suggest 
taking a peek at the SML 97 Basis library for ideas. Something comparable 
for Caml would be great, and would probably be pretty stable since it
doesn't use the more researchy parts of Caml, i.e. the object system.
I think the Basis library emerged in order to make SML more useable for 
systems programming, so it is likely to have features you desire. Basing 
a Caml Basis Library on SMLs also allows Caml and SML programmers to port
code a little more easily between the two languages.

There are also some other useful abstractions that can be stolen from Modula3. 

-- Brian