On 23 Apr 2004, at 14:33, John Goerzen wrote:
>
> A plethora of mutually-incompatible modules that duplicate and extend
> standard library features is in nobody's interest.  The result will be
> an irrelevant standard library and a fragmented development community.

Yeah— that was such a huge roadblock to the popularity of the C 
language.

As one of those guys who maintains a library that supplements the Ocaml 
standard library with additional stuff, e.g. IPv6 sockets, functional 
deques, and continuation monads— I have to disagree.  (And no, I'm not 
at all bummed that nobody cares about my puny library.  If you like 
Extlib, then keep using it.)

A vibrant community of people outside INRIA developing independent 
[even mutually-incompatible] extensions to the distribution libraries 
is in *everybody's* interest.  It serves as proof of the success of 
Projet Cristal that the community of users of its language is growing.  
Contention among providers of foundation library code is to be 
expected— even celebrated.  Better news still would be an open market, 
holding a plethora of mutually incompatible *closed-source* library 
modules.  That would be the *real* indication that INRIA has gotten its 
euros worth in research spending.

Vive la fragmentation!


-- 
j h woodyatt <jhw@wetware.com>
markets are only free to the people who own them.
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