On Sat, 2003-09-20 at 00:47, Richard Jones wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 19, 2003 at 10:01:15AM +0200, Mattias Waldau wrote:
> > Disadvantage
> > - 8-bits strings.
> >   UNICODE is needed and the standard for .NET, Java, Ruby...
> 
> Yeah, UTF-8 is a real necessity for us too.
> 
> > - Few libraries
> 
> Yup. If there's one thing which Perl/Java have taught us, it's that
> you can NEVER, EVER have a large enough standard library! It'd be
> great if OCaml came with a really comprehensive library.

I don't agree entirely. As a member of the C++ Standardisation
Committee I can tell you that one aim is to keep the C++ Standard
Library sensibly sized. A library which is too large becomes 
unmaintable, too daunting for users .. and demonstrates that the
language fails to support simplicity.

One virtue of the Ocaml library at the moment is that after
certain 'weird' libraries are removed from consideration,
the data-structures and algorithms part is quite small,
the core language support is tiny, and the external functionality
wrappers (such as Unix) are modest and sensible in their scope.

What Ocaml lacks, in my opinion, isn't a 'larger library' so much
as a suitable packaging mechanism to make it easy to obtain
and install add-on libraries. And whilst the Hump is a nice 
source of codes, it isn't quite the same as CPAN :)


-------------------
To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/
Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners