At 17:34 27/07/99 +0200, Hendrik Tews wrote:
>Hi,
>
>as an answer to John I am just telling my heuristics to track
>down type errors:

[...]

>Therefore my strategy is to add type annotations at the first use
>of the problematic identifiers, 

	Ah, thank you! This is a good rule. 

>John Skaller writes:
>   
>   In my actual code, I got an error
>   in a 5000 character expression, and it took three
>   days to figure out the error wasn't in that expression
>   at all. 
>   
>You are right, error reporting is one of the weak points of the
>ocaml system. 

	Error reporting is a 'higher order' function
of a compiler: it is the weakest part of almost all
compilers. In fact, I find ocaml error reporting
quite reasonable compared with other systems.

	For example, just try tracking down errors in
complex template instantiations in C++.

-------------------------------------------------------
John Skaller    email: skaller@maxtal.com.au
		http://www.maxtal.com.au/~skaller
		phone: 61-2-96600850
		snail: 10/1 Toxteth Rd, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia