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Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

flint.cs.yale.edu

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Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#11

Post by dleslie »

nv-vn wrote: post #6

The problem with this article is that it's missing an answer to why one would choose ML/OCaml over Haskell. Haskell has many more features, a more advanced type system, arguably superior syntax, and much better library support. However, I believe that OCaml/SML are often a better choice for a number of reasons. First of all, OCaml/SML are the best choice in terms of example code for compilers. They're historically th…

Also, Haskell is something of a soup of DSL-operators that require one spend significant time researching what they mean and what behaviour they induce. Even with such knowledge, it suffers from the Perl-ish woe of write-once and read-never.

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#12

Post by jroesch »

nv-vn wrote: post #6

The problem with this article is that it's missing an answer to why one would choose ML/OCaml over Haskell. Haskell has many more features, a more advanced type system, arguably superior syntax, and much better library support. However, I believe that OCaml/SML are often a better choice for a number of reasons. First of all, OCaml/SML are the best choice in terms of example code for compilers. They're historically th…

This article is from 1998, the landscape was much different. Haskell had a handful of the language features it has today, and was lacking many of the innovations in its runtime and libraries.

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#14

Post by nv-vn »

Dangeranger wrote: post #3

After learning Elm I wanted to understand ML/OCaml a bit more, so I worked through some documentation from the OCaml site and walked away pleasantly surprised. After using it for a couple of weeks I am confused why ML/OCaml aren't more popular. They are safe, functional, stable, fast, and have great tooling. They seem poised to take over the functional domain. While the syntax took a little getting used to ( emphasis…

I think MLs are kind of in limbo in regards to functional vs. imperative and OO vs. procedural programming. While they offer good OO, it's utilized very little. The functional features are used a ton, but don't dare approach the complexity of Scala, Haskell, etc., which is disappointing to a lot of more advanced functional programmers. They have reasonably good facilities for imperative programming, but these are mostly frowned upon. The whole language is, to an extent, a compromise over various paradigms that are very nearly mutually exclusive outside of ML.

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#15

Post by ue_ »

Dangeranger wrote: post #3

After learning Elm I wanted to understand ML/OCaml a bit more, so I worked through some documentation from the OCaml site and walked away pleasantly surprised. After using it for a couple of weeks I am confused why ML/OCaml aren't more popular. They are safe, functional, stable, fast, and have great tooling. They seem poised to take over the functional domain. While the syntax took a little getting used to ( emphasis…

I've heard the concurrency situation with OCaml isn't very good, though I know nothing about that. Weirdly, this kind of bias and the idea that it doesn't have as many libraries for my particular domain (web programming) has put me off it, as much as I'd like to use it.

Using functional languages without Lisp-like macros will always be sort of weird to me, like I'm missing out on something.

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#16

Post by poizan42 »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #5
Dangeranger wrote: post #3

After learning Elm I wanted to understand ML/OCaml a bit more, so I worked through some documentation from the OCaml site and walked away pleasantly surprised. After using it for a couple of weeks I am confused why ML/OCaml aren't more popular. They are safe, functional, stable, fast, and have great tooling. They seem poised to take over the functional domain. While the syntax took a little getting used to ( emphasis…

Crappy windows support for OCaml. F# is similar to OCaml, but is very difficult for beginners and those not familiar with .NET. I also don't see a lot of beginner material for OCaml.

At computer science at the University of Copenhagen F# has been used for the introduction courses the past couple of years, which as far as I know has been a big success, so I'm doubtful of it not being beginner friendly

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#17

Post by nv-vn »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #4
Dangeranger wrote: post #3

After learning Elm I wanted to understand ML/OCaml a bit more, so I worked through some documentation from the OCaml site and walked away pleasantly surprised. After using it for a couple of weeks I am confused why ML/OCaml aren't more popular. They are safe, functional, stable, fast, and have great tooling. They seem poised to take over the functional domain. While the syntax took a little getting used to ( emphasis…

>After using it for a couple of weeks I am confused why ML/OCaml aren't more popular For me, the issue is the GIL, although that is being worked on as we speak.

Sadly, I'm starting to lose my hope over multicore. It's been in the works for as long as I've used the language with much speculation of it being "almost done" or "in the next release" that have failed to materialize. That said, I don't have the time to really follow along with the compiler's development so take that with a grain of salt.

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#18

Post by nv-vn »

jroesch wrote: post #12
nv-vn wrote: post #6

The problem with this article is that it's missing an answer to why one would choose ML/OCaml over Haskell. Haskell has many more features, a more advanced type system, arguably superior syntax, and much better library support. However, I believe that OCaml/SML are often a better choice for a number of reasons. First of all, OCaml/SML are the best choice in terms of example code for compilers. They're historically th…

This article is from 1998, the landscape was much different. Haskell had a handful of the language features it has today, and was lacking many of the innovations in its runtime and libraries.

Very true. I didn't mean this so much as a criticism of the article, but more of an addition to what the article was already saying. I think all the arguments addressed in it are pretty good, but it's not 100% up to date with the current FP world.

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#19

Post by gizmo686 »

kornakiewicz wrote: post #9

I'm a relatively young developer (three years older than Java) and don't fully get the thing about exceptions (point 7). It sounds very familiar to the solution I know from Java, and it does not make safety - or even feeling about it - any better. If you can still write code that can throw exception and an explicit assurance about it is the only way to prevent the crash, it doesn't change anything, actually. P.S. I'm…

Exceptions in ML languages are very similar to those in Java. The reason for that is simple: they are simply a good way of dealing with computations that might fail. Having said that, exceptions are best used (in any language) where you want to deal with the failure way up in the call stack. If you catch the exception right where it occurs, you should just use a safe method that reports a failure in the return value.

Speaking as a Haskell programmer, never use exceptions. You can get away with this advice because the Either monad allows you to have the behavior of exceptions (namely, at any point you can "fail" a computation and have the error automatically propagate up to the handler). However, this approach relies heavily on having a type system more advanced than OCaml's in order to be reasonable.

Re: Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers (1998)

#20

Post by zem »

Dangeranger wrote: post #3

After learning Elm I wanted to understand ML/OCaml a bit more, so I worked through some documentation from the OCaml site and walked away pleasantly surprised. After using it for a couple of weeks I am confused why ML/OCaml aren't more popular. They are safe, functional, stable, fast, and have great tooling. They seem poised to take over the functional domain. While the syntax took a little getting used to ( emphasis…

the toolchain was pretty damn bad for years. it's only very recently gotten better with the rise of opam, oasis and some decent build systems.
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