Markus Mottl wrote:

> 
> I second this. Does anybody here really benefit from such cyclic
> structures?

I feel it necessary to cite prof. Jean-Jacques Levy's course 
  on programming languages at the Ecole Polytechnique:
(http://www.enseignement.polytechnique.fr/informatique/M2/lp/).

The following code illustrates how recursive data structures 
might be used to build a caml interpreter.

type expression = string

type variable_name = string

type values =
	Variable of variable_name
| 
Const of int
| 
Function of variable_name * expression * environment

and environment = (variable_name * values) list


The following is the internal representation the caml 
interpreter would build of
"let rec fact x = if x = 0 then 1 else x * fact (x-1)"

let rec rho =
   ["fact" , Function ("x", "if x=0 then 1 else x * fact 
(x-1)", rho)]

I hope this helps.

Alex

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