On Dec 5, 2004, at 6:36 PM, Tom Hawkins wrote:

> Extrapolating on this idea, it would be advantageous to have a "Tools" 
> module [..] Such a module would provide first-class ADTs for data that 
> is currently represented in files: .ml, .mli, .mll, .cmi, .cmx, etc.  
> For example:
>
>   let my_ml = Tools.ml_of_file "my.ml" in  (* or ... *)
>   let gen_ml = Tools.ml_of_string "print_string \"hello!\"" in
>
> With such a framework, the complexity of the build process is 
> encapsulated in a program.

In my experience, all serious projects have to deal with more than one 
kind of source language: besides OCaml there could be TeX for 
documentation, Troff for manual pages, input for special-purpose code 
generators like Burg, and so on. A build system must be able to deal 
with all of them. Therefore your proposal would not eliminate the need 
for a general build tool outside of OCaml,

-- Christian