From: Jacques GARRIGUE <garrigue@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp>
Date: Mon, 13 May 96 10:06:23 JST
Message-Id: <9605130106.AA11092@cinnamon>
To: caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr
In-Reply-To: <9605101257.AA06291@gr6.u-strasbg.fr> (boos@gr6.u-strasbg.fr)
Subject: Upcoming O'Labl
O'Caml comes, so what is happening to Label Special Light ?
Question 1 (Christian Boos <boos@gr6.u-strasbg.fr>)
> Another one is that the very interesting contribution of Jacques
> Garrigue and Jun P. Furuse (labeled and optional arguments to
> functions) hasn't merged with the mainstream. Will this happen one
> day, at least optionaly (sort of -withlabels option) ?
No idea, I'm not the one who decides. But this may take some time, as
the following explains.
Question 2 (myself)
Will labeled arguments be ported to O'Caml ?
Yes, I'm working on it and have already an alpha version. Must be
checked carefully since the source changed a lot. I hope I can release
it this week.
It is even more than labeled and optional arguments, since there are
also new polymorphic variants. This should mix nicely with objects.
However there are a number of problems, which will certainly not be
solved in the first release. That is, objects are breaking the basic
assumption of labels and comptionals compiling: that the actual type
of a function is known when it is applied. This is no longer true with
methods. This means that there will be restrictions on the use of
labels in method definitions :-(, otherwise integration should go
smoothly.
> Anyway, Caml is still going better and better ... That's great !
True ! But I didn't think CSL would disappear so quickly !
Jacques