On Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 10:12:25AM +0900, Jacques Garrigue wrote:
> You're right, but there is a bit more about dynamic linking.
> A major problem with using dynamic linking with ocaml (in particular
> with native code), is that your program come cut into small pieces,
> and you must be sure that they are all compatible. Somebody posted
> recently about problems when upgrading ocaml, and part of it is caused
> by incompatibilities in the binary format between versions. Just
> imagine the reaction of your user when, after having loaded various
> packages required for your program, he only gets an error message or a
> segmentation fault when trying to run it.

You just would need a propper versionning scheme for ocaml libraries, which
follow strict rules. This way, if you do incompatibles changes to a library
(the signature changes) you bump the version number, and everyone will know
about it. This would be a big gain even if we are not linking statically.

One could even imagine a scheme were there is support for compatible
signatures changes or such (adding functions and so on), i guess the module
type system is able to offer this easily.

Friendly,

Sven Luther
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