David Brown wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 11:04:36AM +1000, skaller wrote:
> 
>> I'm curious why people want to use these kinds of routines.
>> What does printf style mini-language printing have to offer compared to
>> just using plain old Ocaml functions?
> 
>   sprintf "%04d/%02d/%02d %02d:%02d:%02d" y m d h m s
> 
> becomes rather verbose and clumsy when written out as functions.

This discussion has nothing to do with printf and similar function.
Please do not derail the thread and stay on topic, which is
pretty-printing in ocaml toplevel.

Assuming the original question was "why pretty-printing" (as opposed to
"why printf", which is irrelevant to this discussion), the answer I hope
is clear: because a good interactive toplevel is useful for many
purposes. I have two kinds of motivation: teaching ocaml and enriching
ocaml toplevel with graphics and the like, so that it looks and feels
more like Mathematica. (Looks are important!)

Best regards,

Andrej

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